#not my usual contribution to the fandom but wanted to try something different!

[animatedjen]

Cal slipped.

Rock shattered under his foot and skittered down towards the treeline below. His knee and face took most of the impact, crimped handholds biting against his fingers. On his back, BD readjusted his grip with a whir of concern. Twice he’d told Cal this idea was stupid, both times after Cal fell into loose shale while approaching the wall. After that the droid hunkered down and kept his opinions to himself, if only to prevent throwing Cal off balance.

“It’s okay buddy,” Cal grunted the assurance as he looked for new footing. He tasted dirt and maybe blood, his arms were completely spent, and yet somehow it was the best Cal had felt in weeks. He shifted his hips lower and let his weight settle over his left foot, then inched his right up the wall to another toehold. Not great, but it should be enough.

He'd first found the crag while exploring with Mosey. “This path would take us all the way round Raider territory ‘cept for that bluff in the way,” she explained, steering her nekko away from the large outcropping. Cal remembered looking it over, instinctually tracing a line up through the various shapes and grooves in the basalt rock face. A project for another time, after they found Tanalorr.

Now halfway up the cliff, Cal can’t think about hidden planets or fallen friends or a looming Empire. All he can do is inch sideways and slot his hand into a nearby crevice, adjusting until the meat of his palm is wedged firmly into the gap. The next hand follows, then he finds his feet. Instinctually Cal matched his breath to each movement, a soft inhale followed by a deep hiss of an exhale. It’s a form of meditation that he’s never truly found while on the ground.

At the temple he climbed everything. The other younglings in his creche turned it into a game, pointing out interesting walls or columns that could potentially offer a challenge. Wynne once dared Cal to climb to the top of the Archive without touching the floor, and he made it over the railing and onto the second story bookshelves before a bewildered librarian sounded the alarm. His punishment was to dust those same bookshelves, which was wildly boring aside from the ever-present audience: Cal made sure every passing Jedi knew why an eight year old padawan had been assigned cleaning duty. Master Catrine called him a tree-goat and it became Cal’s nickname for the rest of the year.

Learning more of the Force only improved his physicality. Master Tapal had taken one look at his tiny human padawan, bouncing around the halls of the Albedo Brave, and immediately added aerobatics to the training regiment. “You won’t be able to overpower your opponent,” he would say while Cal learned to dash across walls and flip higher into the air. “Use your size and speed to maneuver through your surroundings, adapting to the environment and using it to your advantage.”

Years later, Cal scaled the hull of a half-scrapped Star Destroyer faster than anyone on his shift. The rusting, jagged pieces of metal were nothing like Venator-class training halls or the trees in the Temple meditation gardens. These ships were covered in tragedy, rotted by war and the incessant Bracca rain. He learned to climb with rigging gear, climb with too many pounds of scrapper kit, climb with gnawing emptiness in his stomach and torch burns across his knuckles. The Force was no longer an aid, only a dull, haunted reminder of his past. But years of training were etched too deep into his muscles to be completely forgotten, and the Guild valued those skills enough to employ a destitute liability of a child.

Above, two relters cut across the late afternoon sky, their shadows racing each other along the rockface. Cal tucked his knee against a well-placed indent and ground his foot into the wall until each side felt secure. The kneebar in place, he released his hands with a sigh, shaking out tension and letting the breeze wick away sweat. Guilt gnawed at Cal’s consciousness– he should be at the saloon with the others, helping pack supplies for their next trip through the abyss. The Raiders would likely be wiped out by the Empire anyway, and that’s a problem that no new climbing line can fix.

The Force hummed softly. Cal continued to the end of the fissure, finding another rest point just off to the side. He pressed a hand against a flat portion of the wall, testing its integrity.

“Ready BD?” he called. One beep later, a metal spike launched over Cal’s shoulder to his waiting hand. It would’ve been easier to rewire the entire Mantis than convince BD to swap out his stim canisters for pitons, but Cal didn’t want to risk losing any of his hardware mid-climb. He lined up the spike and let the Force gather around it, then with a Push drove it into the wall. The impact echoed across the treeline below with a satisfying boom.

That was the last piton, BD trilled as Cal added a carabiner. Leaning back, he checked the dangling rope below, tracing it through the previously embedded spikes. Everything’s holding. He checked in with his body. Everything’s hurting. Great. A stim would’ve been nice right about now.

The rope was threaded up and through the final anchor as Cal scouted the last section of the ascent: two sloping holds and a column that juts up over the top of the cliff. He moved his hands to each sloper, mantling up and to the side until there was enough space for his heel to meet his hand. Both hands shifted to the left sloper, and his other foot met them there. Slowly, achingly, he rotated upwards.

BD launched from Cal’s back with a whoop, his thruster carrying him just high enough to disappear over the cliff’s edge. Immediately the whirr of his scanner filled the quiet evening air. Cal laughed despite his weariness, reaching up to grab an edge on the column. Another reach, another foothold, and he had made it. Scrubby grass poked out from gaps in the basalt while thick clouds silhouetted the distant rock formations in pink and gold. In the valley between them lay Rambler’s Reach, just barely outlined in the sunset. 

Everyone Cal loved was in that tiny speck of a settlement. Everyone else was gone. He sunk to the ground, keenly aware of each complaining muscle as he wiped the dust off his face. BD finished scanning and joined him at the ledge.

“What a view, huh BD,” Cal said quietly. Together they watched the rest of the sky fade to dusk.

–

One relter ride later, Cal was collecting leftover gear at the base of the cliff when nekkos trotted up from the ravine. Mosey emerged first, a lantern swinging from her pack. To Cal’s surprise, Merrin was following her.

“We thought that was you,” Merrin said, dropping from the nekko to greet BD. He immediately asked if she brought stims. “Toa and Zee set up a telescope on the roof of Pyloon’s. We wanted to see what was drilling into the mountains. Thankfully, just a Jedi.”

“Shoot, you really sent that.” Mosey was staring wide-eyed at the rock face, the rope carving a thin brown line to the top of the outcropping. “Incredible. I knew you were good in a fight Cal, but this is something else.”

“With the anchors in place, you should be able to add additional aid,” Cal said. “Make it as easy to climb as possible.” He imagined Turgle dangling from a rope ladder while somehow completely wrapped in another rope ladder. “With some help,” he added.

“This could be huge.” Mosey examined the approach, kicking shale and other loose rocks to form a potential new path. “What’s the backside look like?”

“Not sure, there wasn’t enough light by the time I got up there. But–” Cal glanced over to Merrin, weighing her expression. “We could probably get a rappel system set up, if we stayed on Koboh a little longer.”

Merrin tilted her head. “You said we should establish the Sanctuary as soon as possible,” she said. “Staying on Koboh would delay that.”

“That’s right." The gnawing guilt crept back to his mind, and immediately he wished he was back on the wall again, which only increased the guilt. 

“But,” Merrin cut into his thoughts. “Our goal is to help those who need it. That includes the people here.” She looked up at the cliff, now a shadow against the emerging stars. “I think a new pathway away from Raiders and Empire could be very helpful, and would give Greez time to finish packing the saloon. He’s collected too many trinkets these last few years.”

The dust was back in Cal’s eyes again. “Would that work for you, Mosey?”

Mosey grinned. “Sure does. It might even be fun.”

[justporo]

Hi! Could I please get some headcanons or a drabble of Astarion x anemic!Tav and how things may differ when it comes to him feeding on them, how he'd take care of them if they needed it, etc? Would love to see what you come up with. Thank you for your time! 💜

Hello and thank you very much, Anon! Since I'm actually hit with the Bloodless debuff today myself... What else could I have written?

This is a very sweet idea to write something - which I took and then made it sarcastic... I hope you like it.

Also - idk why, but for this I pictured Tav as velnna's Staeve - you probably know who I'm talking about and if you don't you should very quickly go over there and find out, because I love Steven and you should really give this incredible incredible artist who has contributed so much to this fandom a lot of love. All the love. (I didn't wanna tag them because I didn't know if it was okay and didn't want to annoy them but go check out their blog!!)

Pairing: Astarion / Tav (You) Wordcount: 1,6k

Bloodless

The sun was burning in the sky. You felt sweat almost drip from your skin. Every step seemed to be harder than the last one. Your heart was fluttering although your pulse seemed flat. Damn this Mountain Pass.

You and the rest of the party had been hiking through the mountains for days. It was exhausting for everyone, but especially for you it seemed. Surely, the fact that you had offered Astarion your blood almost every other night (and that he was always very keen and graciously grateful to take it) had quite obviously to do with how much your stamina had dwindled.

But you knew offering up your blood was very much helpful. Not only to the vampire, but the party as a whole: Astarion had basically become a menace on the battlefield since he’d been able to feed properly. Also, you were stubborn – a bit of missing blood wouldn’t knock you out. Or would it?

You tripped on a loose stone and almost face-planted on the ground. Only in the last moment were you able to catch yourself and dampen the fall with your arms. You quickly got up again and hoped no one had noticed since you’d dropped to being the last in the group today.

But trying to raise yourself so quickly had been a mistake and you suddenly felt overly woozy, your vision blurring and you were immediately back on one knee.

And of course, it hadn’t gone unnoticed: Astarion had been in front of you and had seemingly been alarmed by the noise of your fall – twice.

“What is it, Tav, got too distracted looking at my back, hm?”, he taunted and came over to where you were doubled over – leaning on your arms too now because you felt so dizzy all of a sudden that you felt you had need of all of your four limbs on the ground to support you.

When the vampire realised you weren’t getting up and also didn’t respond to his quip in your usual witty manner, he quickly gave the others a shout to let them know not to go too far ahead. Then he came over to you. You were desperately trying to not pass out when you saw the hands of the pale elf through your blurred vision reaching for you.

“You do hear me, yes?”, Astarion whispered to you. You could only nod curtly. His hands hesitantly touched your shoulders.

“Alright, can you get up? There’s a big stone over there where you could sit down.” You shook your head which made you even dizzier.

“Oh hm”, Astarion seemed a little helpless on how to proceed with you. You felt him turn away.

“Don’t tell the others!”, you exclaimed breathlessly. The vampire whipped around: “But… why?” “Just don’t please”, you whispered and carefully looked up at his face. Was that… actual worry?

“Please just… Help me sit on this rock, let me have some water… and rest and we’ll keep going in a few minutes”, you pleaded with him. Astarion didn’t look completely convinced but sighed in defeat after a few of your racing heartbeats.

“Alright – could you please not die for a moment while I go and talk to the others?”, he said in a sassy tone that couldn’t completely gloss over the worry in his voice.

You let your head fall down again and simply nodded. Astarion went off towards the rest of your companions.

Ever so slowly you felt a little bit better. Cautiously you knelt back onto your feet – at least not on all fours anymore! Shortly after you tried to carefully get up and move over to the rock Astarion had mentioned.

That was when the vampire returned. “Oh no no, you stay right where you are, you poor helpless creature that would have perished already had it not been for me.” He ran the last few feet over and grabbed one of your arms to slowly put it around his neck and help you get up and walk over to sit on the boulder. You wanted to say something witty at his taunt, but your mind was too blank.

“Also, we are actually taking a break – all of us, so don’t even try to keep on walking”, he scolded you as he placed you down.

“What did you tell the others?”, you asked simply as you placed your forearms on your thighs and just sat leaning forward like that for a little. “Tss, does it matter now? Something like I broke a nail of mine and needed a moment to mourn it or whatever”, Astarion replied annoyedly.

“Can’t believe they actually stopped for that”, you said slowly and chuckled with your head between your knees and threw up a look at your vampiric companion. “Yeah well, seems they care a lot about my wellbeing. And I take it they would about yours, too”, he gave back – again very sassily. You just chuckled but didn’t reply. You saw that he relaxed a little.

“Ah here. You should probably drink and eat a little”, the vampire said after a while of the two of you just sitting there. He offered you a water bottle and some berries from a pouch – both of which weren’t his for obvious reasons.

You narrowed your eyes at him: “Where did you get those?” “By the Gods, you are so reluctant to help, I should’ve left you in the dirt.” Astarion rolled his eyes at you. “The druid gave it to me – you’re not as inconspicuous as you might believe, oh mighty leader of our adventure troupe.” You had a desire to punch this cheeky elf but you knew you were in no condition to act on something like this, so you sighed and first took the water and then started to munch on some berries from the offered pouch.

Silence spread once more between the two of you. Before Astarion broke it again: “Listen, Tav, darling, I know this must be because you’re letting me drink your blood so often.” You immediately wanted to start protesting but the vampire hushed you, brows furrowed.

“No, for once, you’ll let me do the talking. Don’t think I’m blind – your form has been declining for quite some time now. We can’t go on like this. I mean, Halsin has also noticed already.” You stayed silent and kept popping berries in your mouth and silently thanked the druid for his kind gesture – even if you didn’t want the others to know of this weakness. You slowly started to feel better.

“As much as I enjoy our little late night… sessions. We should probably take a break – at least concerning these particular ones. And maybe later, keep longer breaks in between if you insist to keep throwing yourself at me to drink your blood”, Astarion continued and sighed theatrically.

He tried so hard to be sarcastic about the whole thing, but you noticed that he was actually worried, judging by the guilty glint in his red eyes. And maybe it was that the blood loss was affecting your brain too much but you stared at him and just dryly said: “You know, you could just admit that you care about me, Astarion.”

The vampire huffed in surprise, then he sneered with a click of his tongue: “Bah, of course I do, you seem to be the only one to get this group of clowns to work together after all. It’s not like I care for you much as a person. As a blood bag maybe, but other than that…”

You pursed your lips and let him ramble, digging his own verbal grave by trying to talk himself out of it.

You didn’t even reply afterwards, just let him steep in the own awkwardness he created.

You kept looking at him – even offered him a berry, he scrunched his nose at – then shrugged and ate it yourself.

You slowly opened your water bottle…

“Okay, maybe a little. Tiny bit. Because you’re the only one in the group who seems to have a real sense of humour – at least when you’re not lying in the dirt being a dried out husk”, Astarion exclaimed.

You grinned at him wolfishly and shook the last of the berries from the small bag into your mouth ignoring his insult. “Now, wasn’t even that hard, was it? I really like you to, Astarion”, you said and then slowly stood up – careful not to immediately make a fool of yourself again.

“I liked you better when you were staring at the dirt up close”, the vampire replied and jumped up while crossing his arms over his chest, then sauntered away.

“Sure, if that’s what you need to tell yourself”, you kept teasing and slowly went after the brooding vampire.

You met up with the rest of the camp then went on your way for the rest of the day. The others were already so used to the two of you missing from the camp at the same time (mostly during nighttime, of course) that they didn’t even look up when the two of you came back.

Later when you all had settled down for the night you saw that Astarion went over to Halsin and talked to him softly. They both threw you looks in between which made you uncomfortable because you certainly could imagine what the topic was. Before Astarion had also made sure you’d gotten the first serving of tonight’s dinner (and also seconds).

Even later when the others were already at rest the vampire confessed, he’d been asking the druid about how he could go about drinking your blood without putting too much of a strain on you. Again, you noticed that he seemed not only concerned about his blood rations when he explained that to you.

The next days you also noticed that Astarion had started carrying some water and the bag from Halsin containing the berries.

And you thought to yourself that – for a blood bag – Astarion seemed to put an awful lot of thought and action into making sure you were okay.

[ineffabildaddy]

i know this may be obvious to a lot of people, but i thought it was worth saying anyway: i love the good omens fandom because it encourages contribution more than any other popular fandom i've been in.

i'm incapable of being a casual fan of anything. it's just not in my nature. i've been in fandom spaces just over a decade - fandoms related to musicians, books, films and tv shows - and yet i've never been in a fandom that captures, creates, analyses, jokes, and just talks more than this one.

in most of the fandoms i've been in, there's a lot of passive consumption of fan content, which is obviously great and we all do it, but in the good omens fandom, that doesn't seem to make up the majority of our behaviour. in fact, when i got back on tumblr for the first time in 7 years after watching season 2, i had a look around at what the fandom was doing for a day or two and my first thought was: oh god, what if i've got nothing to say? what if i've got nothing to add that hasn't already been added? i immediately felt that i wouldn't truly be part of things if i didn't get stuck in.

if i'm fixated on something or particularly enjoying it at one time, i might wake up in the morning or pick up my phone/laptop thinking, i want to see more, hear more, learn more about this thing. that's still the case with good omens, but with the addition of, how can i contribute today? how can i bring something to the fandom, how can i connect with it, how can i consistently encourage and support the people in it? and that's all because of how artistic, analytical, poetic, humorous but above all enthusiastic all of you are.

the truth is, i'm not at all a confident person. i've got a film degree, i've done stand-up comedy and i've written comedy sketches, i was a popular fanfiction writer for years (hi supernatural fans), and i've shared poetry, too. so, i have got experience in things that could make my contributions to fandom spaces worthwhile (not that you need any particular achievements under your belt). yet usually, the fact that people are doing things that i'm doing infinitely better than me puts me off the idea of doing them at all. so, oftentimes i don't do them, or if i do i put them down immediately and keep them private.

i'm still very much experiencing that feeling since becoming active in the good omens fandom, precisely because there's so much talent and dedication here, but i'm trying to ignore it because it feels like everyone who wants to say something is genuinely valued - especially since people who think differently about aspects of the book and show aren't actually fighting with each other or obsessed with proving they're right, which is quite rare in my experiences of fandoms.

it's been really really refreshing to become an active part of this fandom and i do hope it remains that way as more time elapses since season 2 was released. i have a feeling it will because we've all chosen one of the most wonderful stories of our time to engage with, and the fans' love for it was and is taken more seriously by terry, neil, david and michael than we ever could've hoped for.<3

[coffeenonsense]

I usually try to stay in my lane most of the time (mostly bc I am far too old for fandom drama) but what the hell, it's friday, let's put that lit degree to use:

the way people are playing morality politics with fiction is really starting to genuinely irk me and I think some of the responses to ascended astarion are a perfect example of why this type of thinking is actually hugely detrimental to one's ability to meaningfully engage with fiction and also to the future of art.

astarion is one of the most well-written complex characters I've seen in recent years bar none (and I'm clearly not alone given the explosion of his personal fandom lol) and he has a truly compelling, emotionally resonant character arc whether you ascend him or not

If you keep him a spawn, you get a deeply touching, realistic character's journey to healing and personal growth where he learns who he is after the experience of his trauma and depending on the player's choice, explores his relationship to sex, romance and intimacy

If you ascend astarion, you get an equally emotional and well-rounded character arc where he chooses the power that allows him to have the desperate freedom and safety he's wanted, but in the process eschews any hope of real healing or personal development, and again, depending on the player's choices, restarts the cycle of abuse by taking cazador's place.

These options offer vastly different paths for the character and experiences for the player, but while yes, ascended astarion is the evil ending, and yes, ascending astarion is a tragedy, and a fucking incredible one (not only do you have astarion reigniting a circle of abuse but you have the narrative weight of KNOWING he could have actually overcome his trauma...hats off to the bg3 team tbh) but that does not mean ascending astarion MAKES YOU AS THE PLAYER EVIL

Ascend astarion because you love tragic story arcs, ascend him because you want to indulge in a master/slave vampire fantasy, don't ascend him because you want a healing character journey, don't ascend him because you want a sweet romance; all of these choices carry the same moral weight for the player, which is to say, none, because they are an exploration of fiction.

I know I'm saying this to the villain fucker website but it bears repeating; just because someone wants to engage with evil, fucked up characters or content does not mean they support evil acts in their real life, and furthermore, exploring dark, taboo or tragic concepts safely is part of what fiction is for. It enables us to look at those things from a distance, work through difficult feelings and develop greater understanding of what makes our fellow humans tick — and before you get it twisted there's also no moral issue with exploring fucked up media bc you're horny or just, because. You can take it as seriously (or as sexily) as you want.

It's starting to really concern me how many people not only do not get, but are violently opposed to this concept, because equating what someone likes in fiction with their real life moral code and actions is an incredibly dangerous and let's be honest, immature way of thinking that not only stunts your ability to engage with fiction but ironically, hampers your ability to deal with complicated issues and emotions in real life.

I don't know what's driving this trend (though purity culture is certainly playing a role) but it's definitely something that's not just impacting individuals but contributing to the commercialization of art, where we get games and stories and tv shows and books that regurgitate the same safe, mass marketable plotlines and character archetypes over and over and over again so corporations can squeeze out as much profit as possible.

Anyway, remember kids: There's no such thing as thought crime, reaching for morally pure unproblematic media is directly contributing to the death of art, and this is why funding the humanities is important.

[crystallinecardinal]

So I was thinking about Starlo and Chujin

Hi. I love overanalysis. It’s in my blog title as “lore enthusiast.” Most of this probably means nothing and was unintentional, but I’m like an English teacher when it comes to media I like and am scrounging for canon content— I will see something that might have capital I Implications if you think about it hard enough, and I will shake you by the shoulders and go “WHAT DOES IT MEAAAN”

Which brings me to Starlo and Chujin and a thing I noticed while looking through the Spriter’s Resource for Starlo references. Long rant and UTY spoilers below the cut.

I should start off by saying that Starlo and Chujin are similar, in a way. Both of them are nerds, although for different things. Both are said to be caring. Both dedicated their lives to their work. Both wanted to help monsterkind. Both loved Ceroba. Both had secrets.

These similarities have not gone unnoticed, I’ve found— both by the fandom and the devs of UTY.

(Transcript:

Sword: “It does make sense that, like, Chujin and Starlo are kinda similar, and Ceroba, yknow…. She has a type, I guess.”)

So it’s not a secret these two are similar, and it’s probably intentional to make them parallel each other.

But from there, we get to the meat of this post:

These sprites.

This is where I dive into a lot of overanalysis— I’m giving that as a warning before I start. My point here though, is that these two sprites feel incredibly similar in a way where I speculate if it was intentional or not.

I’ll play devil’s advocate first, though. I’m an artist. I draw things, mostly characters and creatures. Sometimes you just have two pieces looking similar— not because you intended it that way, but because the blocking and composition was best that way.

For Starlo’s sprite, the answer feels simple. All of Starlo’s talk portraits are front facing, so this one doesn’t have a need to be any different. If it was, it may feel out of place amongst all the other sprites, especially because there isn’t a reason for him to have this sprite in particular face a different direction. He isn’t looking around, and isn’t averting his gaze. He’s being direct. The best way to convey that is with eye contact (or at least, implied eye contact) via a front facing sprite. Additionally, even if Starlo was averting his gaze, with how UT’s talk sprites work, there are better ways to convey that than changing the way his talk sprite faces.

Starlo’s character as himself also contributes to the way this sprite looks. It’s a direct contrast to the loud, boisterous North Star. This is the monster behind the persona— one who’s a lot less confident, one who thinks himself a ghost to the people around him. A “nobody farmer,” in his words. When trying to get this across, art-wise, the way Starlo’s talk sprites look as opposed to North Star’s talk sprites are a perfect fit! It’s in the subtle expressions versus animated expressions. This is even down to how Starlo’s glasses are drawn, not showing his eyes behind them, giving him a much more distant look.

As for Chujin’s sprite, the answer also feels fairly simple. The sprite pictured earlier was for his tapes, where it would make sense for most of his sprites to be front facing. He’s talking to the camera, it’s a video log. Being silhouetted also works here— it makes him more mysterious in a way.

That’s what I have to say if you look at it JUST from an art point. However, we like to be a little silly in this house (my blog), so I’m going to overanalyze the hell out of this.

So. The pose.

I’m probably going insane at this point. I’ve already explained the most likely reason for the poses being similar, and don’t get me wrong, that’s probably the main reason why. But also— note the eyes.

According to the Spriter’s Resource, Chujin’s sprites usually have his eyes visible from behind his goggles.

But.

There are exceptions.

I think the reason for this lies in the same reason we never see Starlo’s eyes behind his glasses after he takes the hat off. I explained this earlier when discussing the artistic reasoning behind these sprites— not seeing Starlo’s eyes makes him appear more distant, which highlights the part of his character that’s much less confident in himself. We go from seeing his eyes (or at least, the shape of them behind his glasses, this is a consistency with UTY sprites I can talk about later) to not at all.

This is what makes Chujin’s sprites so important to me.

We’re meant to like Chujin. At least, before we know the truth. We’re meant to think he was always a kindhearted man, a loving father and husband, and a good mentor. All the good things. It’s only as the game continues that you see the imperfections. By talking to Dina, you see he didn’t like the Wild East due to what it stood for, and you learn of the time he came into the saloon all disheveled, uncharacteristically asking for a drink, only mentioning he thought he “saw a ghost”. You learn in the Steamworks of his research, and how he wasn’t as good at robotics as he was made out to be.

That’s what makes Chujin flawed, though. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, none of these things will make a player dislike him. As said— we’re supposed to like Chujin. An opinion and a mysterious saloon visit isn’t the end of the world. We also grow to learn more and more about him, and he seems just like a kind man with a love for robotics (even if he struggled).

And then we learn of Ceroba’s plan. And we learn of something hidden in the abandoned Ketsukane Estate.

This is the first time in the Pacifist route that we actually SEE Chujin, first in a photo.

Note the eyes.

We see Chujin’s eyes behind his goggles here! Once again— this is likely for the reason mentioned before. We’ve only been told mostly good things about Chujin so far! Here’s a photo of him and his family— how could this kind man be wrapped in anything suspicious?

Which then makes the sudden change in the tapes crucial.

We can no longer see his eyes— he’s grown distant, mysterious. This is the part of Chujin that he kept secret from even Ceroba, up until he was on his deathbed. It’s the part of him that isn’t necessarily the loving husband and father we know him as, but rather, this is the part of him that was a determined researcher on a mission. And therefore, Chujin goes from lively to cold.

I’m sure that last bit doesn’t ring any alarm bells at all.

Hey! Remember how I said Starlo and Chujin are similar in ways? This is where I get into that. I’m applauding you from behind my screen if you’re still reading.

I’m now going to talk about Starlo and Chujin as characters, as well as the parallels between the two sprites that started this analysis. For simplicity, I’ll break these into sections. Funky names for a funky reading experience, so I’m not just word dumping at you.

1) Got a secret, can you keep it?

Soooo. Chujin and Starlo’s secrets.

One of the first things that rings alarm bells for me is the situation in which both of the sprites I’m analyzing pop up in. Context is key. Specifically, both of the sprites are used when we’re learning the truth about each character.

For Starlo, we’re learning about who he really is, the monster behind the persona. He takes his hat off, reveals the monster underneath, and we get his new talk sprite. He’s finally stopping, for a second— taking a moment to break the act he’s been playing for YEARS. And he does it all to show Ceroba he’s still there underneath it all, as well as reveal to Clover who he really is. He’s at his most vulnerable state, revealing how he sees himself as a nobody, and a fraud.

For Chujin, we’re learning part of the truth of who he was, when he’s at his most morally dubious. We learn of his experiments, the ones he worked on and hid from his family until he was about to die— only then did he tell Ceroba. We also learn of his views and opinions, the reasoning behind them, and how he lied about his job at the Steamworks. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Ceroba he was fired, because he didn’t want her to think less of him.

So, the main points of this:

Starlo and Chujin both had their own secrets

Both of their secrets are revealed when these sprites are used

Both secrets reveal more about the characters’ identities

Both want to be seen in a good light

The main difference, I think, other than what the secrets entail themselves, are what they mean for each character.

2) Light and dark symbolism?? In MY overanalysis??? It’s more likely than you think

Chujin and Starlo’s secrets both weigh on them. Starlo doesn’t want to break character— he enjoys being North Star and wants to bring a smile to the faces of monsterkind. Chujin doesn’t want Ceroba to think any lesser of him for his mistakes.

Additionally, the reveal of their secrets marks two different things for their characters. For Starlo, it’s a step forward. For Chujin, it’s spiraling down.

This gets really fun considering these two sprites, and light and dark symbolism (not in the traditional good versus evil way).

Starlo’s in the light. He’s showing himself, he’s maturing. He’s being incredibly vulnerable for probably the first time in a LONG time, and finally breaking the persona. He’s working towards a better goal, accepting both North Star and Starlo as facets of himself, but it starts with taking off the hat. It starts with coming into the light, and letting the shadows fade away.

Chujin is silhouetted in darkness. As said previously, we only ever hear mostly good things about Chujin from those who were around him (barring Starlo, although that’s secondhand information, and by some extent, Dina). Martlet and Ceroba saw the best in him, a mentor and loving husband respectively. But as he rambles off to his tapes, shrouded in shadow and secrecy, we learn of what was happening behind the scenes: he reveals part of who he really was, and how much he hid away from those he loved, all away from the rose colored glasses.

3) “Your opinion is wrong” -Chujin, probably

To just point out more ways Chujin and Starlo parallel yet also contrast one another (which I will mention for the section after this as well): I think it goes without saying that Starlo and Chujin have opposite worldviews when it comes to humans.

Chujin believes the worst in humans, primarily due to the Snowdin Attack. He hates them— The War was when the blade was plunged into monsterkind’s flesh, and the Snowdin Attack was only a twist of the knife.

Starlo admires humans, maybe a bit too much for some monsters. He loves their stories, loves the idea of cowboys and Westerns, so much so he creates the Wild East with his posse.

This is what makes these two different, only strengthening the light/dark contrast. The ideas of hate and admiration fit well into that theme, don’t they?

Stick with me here. I promise this is going somewhere.

4) “Monsterkind’s Hero is a title soaked in blood.”

So, the aforementioned views of humans? This gets really fun when you apply it to the crux of Starlo and Chujin’s missions: to help monsterkind during their time underground.

Both want to be heroes, in a way. They both want to help. Of course, this is in different ways— but the main intention behind it is the same.

Chujin, as said, hates humans. He wants monsters to be brought to justice. After the Snowdin Attack, he decides that if he can’t help through Axis, then he’ll help another way. Thus starts Chujin’s dedication to his experiments, which he makes his work and eventually the rest of his life. All of it for a chance to help monsterkind when the time comes.

Starlo’s dedication to the Wild East is similar, in a way, yet directly contrasts Chujin. His admiration for humans and Westerns goes to the point he wants to provide monsterkind with their own “slice of the Surface.” He wants to see those around him smile— his own way of helping monsterkind when they’re still stuck underground.

My point here is that while they find different ways to accomplish their missions (and you can drag more light/dark symbolism out of this— Chujin hidden away in the shadows of the basement in the Ketsukane Estate versus Starlo out in the spotlight), both have so much dedication to it that it becomes their lives.

Chujin, although having a family he loved and cared for, let his experiments drive him onwards to the point it cost him his life. Starlo willingly gave up who he was to be North Star, letting the Wild East become his life.

5) Yes, and?

I could go on and on about more similarities and differences between Starlo and Chujin, but I feel like I’ve brought up what I need to for now.

Why bring all of this up in the first place, though? What’s the point of going on about these characters’ missions, or their secrets, or all the light and dark symbolism you could hypothetically draw from it?

Let me talk about those sprites again.

I’ve spent ages going on about Starlo and Chujin, and how they parallel, yet contrast each other. They’re foils, in a way. These similarities and differences are what make these two little sprites so interesting to me.

You could say it’s all because that’s what the scene needed at the time, and that statement likely has truth to it. I already talked about how. But the knowledge of the context of the scenes and these two characters is what makes me wonder if it all was done on purpose.

Chujin, shrouded in shadow, revealing a part of him kept secret from even those he loved most. His reasoning for his hatred for humans comes on full display, and he begins to formulate a mission, the same one his life would eventually fall to. If the royals won’t see how much he cares for monsterkind, he’ll show it himself.

Starlo, left in the Swealterstone’s light, revealing a part of him the Wild East knows nothing of. His mission starts to redefine itself, and it’s original intent becomes more clear. He only ever wanted to be someone. He only ever wanted to help. Maybe now, with the hat off, he can learn to make others happy, but not forget himself in the process.

A conclusion:

So. Do I think that these two sprites for Starlo and Chujin were intentionally made to parallel yet also contrast each other?

My answer is a big fat Maybe. I can’t be entirely sure.

Truth is, I’m not a UTY dev. I literally only discovered and got into this game a little over a month ago. I don’t know the true intent behind the spritework, I don’t know the conversations that happened behind the scenes. I am literally just A Guy ranting on the internet about a silly little fangame that I have brainrot over.

But! I do have a finalized game and commentary I can analyze, and knowing that some spritework details were intentional (the way that Chujin’s talk sprites face are made to match Ceroba and Kanako’s), I could see something like this being either intentional or a really fun coincidence. The type of thing the devs can look back on and realize “oh! That’s funny how I accidentally made that parallel. I didn’t mean to do that, but it works.”

I can only hope it was intentional. Chujin and Starlo are both incredibly interesting characters to me, especially in how they can be seen as foils. Something as minor as this I think just shows the love put into this game and these characters. UTY is just a great game overall, in my opinion.

But yeah! That’s my ramble, all because I was doing sprite studies and looking for references in the Spriter’s Resource for art. Hopefully I made at least some sense :)

[jadelotusflower]

So I finally watched Andor...

...and naturally I have thoughts (hey, it’s me). Maybe they're belated, seeing as this show was released almost two years ago, but I've been on the outskirts of the Star Wars fandom for a while now. This in and of itself isn't usual - I tend to drift between my core fandoms in phases, but since TLJ the GFFA hasn't really been a pleasant place to be so I haven't really had a reason to drift back to it for any length of time.

Which isn't to say I've avoided Star Wars altogether, dipping in when something piques my interest like Obi-Wan Kenobi (which I liked aspects of but ultimately felt like just a setup to the show I actually wanted to watch), and have absorbed some of the rest through cultural osmosis. Andor is a show I've been meaning to get to for a while, although it has been praised to the point of being overhyped (and there was a whiff of Not Like Other Star Wars to the critical reception) so I was concerned it would not meet expectations.

But I was pleasantly surprised as how much this show felt spiritually and aesthetically in tune with the original trilogy, and especially A New Hope, as opposed to Disney!Star Wars. Even if the tone and content of Andor is very different, it feels in conversation with the OT in a way the rest of Disney’s output has not - building on the story we already know, rather than trying replace or rewrite it as something else.

Aesthetically, we have the 70's vibe of the set design and costuming in middle-class Coruscant, the stark white jumpsuits and surrounds of Narkina 5 evoking Lucas's early film THX-1138, even the way we are plopped right into the middle of the story with very little exposition, but still eased into the narrative is very reminiscent of the first act of A New Hope. Thematically, of course we’re seeing the Rebellion in its earlier stages - small disparate cells of seditious activity directly acting against Imperial interests that will become the somewhat ragtag but nonetheless organised and unified Alliance.

While Star Wars was a cinema pastiche throwback to Flash Gordan serials and Campbell’s hero’s journey as an antidote to the grimdark antiheroes of the 70’s, in many ways Andor brings things back full circle to the grit of neo-noir. It holds a mirror up to the OT and lets us see the other side of the coin - and the full cost of victory. So many people have to die for Cassian to make it to the Rebellion - just like Cassian himself will die for the Death Star plans to make it to Leia, like Obi-Wan will die to ensure those plans make it to the Rebellion, and squadrons of rebel pilots will die so Luke can ultimately destroy the Death Star.

A stone is dropped in a pond, and we see the ripples but the stone itself sinks.

Overall thoughts

Tony Gilroy is the showrunner here, a veteran screenwriter notable for the Bourne films, and we can certainly see this influence at work. He also wrote The Devil’s Advocate, which is by no means good but I do enjoy in all its ott mythological monologues-and-accents glory, and seminal romcom (of my childhood at least) The Cutting Edge. He also wrote and directed Michael Clayton, which I have not seen but was nominated for several Oscars, including Original Screenplay, Director, and Best Picture (Tilda Swinton won for Supporting Actress).

Of course he's also a credited screenwriter on Rogue One, and I understand his contribution was mostly to the infamous rewrites/reshoots. I desperately want to read a full breakdown/bts of what went down with that film (well all of Disney-led Lucasfilm really) and see the deleted/original material, because I am fascinated. It's also interesting to note that Gilroy took over showrunning duties from Stephen Schiff pre-production. The show does very much feel like Gilroy wanted to make his own stamp on the Andor character and use him as a vehicle in his spy-thriller/political intrigue wheelhouse.

Reading some of Gilroy’s comments around the series had made me wonder how much of Andor being reflective/referential to the OT was intentional (on his part at least), and arguably Gilroy did overwrite the character of Cassian Andor so…there’s nuance. But as a story, to me it felt in tune with what I love about Star Wars rather than at odds with it, and that's what I appreciated most.

But first things first. B2EMO made it to the end! Finally, my expectations are subverted in a good way, because I love this little droid with all my heart. There are several key elements of Star Wars to me that separate it from other sci-fi/space fantasy and that is Jedi, distinctive aliens, and sentient droids. Obviously there's no Jedi here (nor does there need to be), my issues with the lack of aliens I'll address below, but when it comes to droids B2EMO fits right in, and we can assume is a precursor to Cassian's relationship with K-2SO.

Overall I thought the show was excellent (with a few caveats). What's impressive is the sheer number of characters and plots interwoven together, every conversation servicing character, the overall theme or setting something up that will pay off later, playing with coincidence and fate (the will of the Force), the interlocking domino effect. Arvel Skeen recognising the tattoo on Cassian's arm leads to a conversation of his history, but also sets up Skeen later offering to take and split the haul with Cassian (and getting killed for it). The raid on Aldhani triggers the Empire’s harsh new measures that gets Cassian sentenced to six years in prison, but also inspires the rebellion on Ferrix (via Maarva). The Aldhani heist is a triumph for Vel, but traps Mon’s financial contributions to the Rebellion by the Empire’s crackdown on banking, leading her and her daughter into an unwanted family alliance.

I'm a big proponent of Star Wars Dialogue is Good, Actually - not saying there's not clunkers or stilted scenes (the PT moreso than the OT) but there seems to be this weird consensus that Lucas-era dialogue sucks despite being some of the most quoted/referenced movies of all time. Lucas was creating a modern myth, of course a lot of it is arch and operatic. I love the dialogue in Andor too - which rightly gets high praise, and while it's arguably tighter, in many ways it's no more naturalistic than that of the Saga with everyone constantly speaking in metaphor, it's just pitched differently because this is a different genre (and the acting is uniformly excellent because they are actually interacting with each other and being competently directed).

There’s layers of meaning in almost every scene and subtle moments of foreshadowing that I really enjoy - Karis Nemik muses on the role of mercenaries in a rebellion that must use every tool and weapon at its disposal, and obviously Cassian starts out as that mercenary who will be pulled into the wider struggle, but this also foreshadows the importance of Han Solo - at first only out for the promise of a reward but ultimately instrumental in bringing the Empire down. But it’s not because he’s treated as a tool - as the Empire treats its workforce as tools - but because he’s treated as worthwhile, he’s valued as a person. The Empire casts people out while the Rebellion draws them in.

We also see this in the arc on Narkina 5, and the Empire’s tightening grip backfiring against them. In order to force the prisoners to speedily produce parts for the Death Star they work in close-knit teams, creating a close camaraderie ultimately allowing them to escape - because when you turn people into cogs of a machine, the machine can be turned back against you. Contrast this to the jockeying over position and territory and power in the ISB - they serve the Empire, but never at personal cost.

We see the Republic of affiliated systems from the PT turn into an Empire of conquered planets, where local cultures are subsumed into homogeneous Imperial rule. Even Corpsec is replaced by Imperial oversight, and we know that the Senate on Coruscant will be dissolved completely in ANH. But ultimately this ferments rebellion and unites the outcast and oppressed - the Keredians on Narkina 5 hate the Empire for their prison polluting the waterways, and so let Cassian and Melchi go. Cinta’s whole family was killed by stormtroopers turning her single minded focus to destroying them. The people of Ferrix respond to Maarva’s call and riot against the Imperial forces even though it will mean violent reprisal.

The Empire forges the weapons that will be used against them. As Nemik’s manifesto states: “The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.”

And yet we're not there yet - it's important that this is still a Rebellion and not an Alliance, a disparate collection of segmented sedition with a myriad of agendas we see run by Saw Gerrara, Anton Kreegyr, Luthen Rael. They won't be a genuine threat to the Empire until they join forces, share resources and intelligence, and unite behind a collective goal. Although there may be sacrifices in this as well - Separatists, Partisan Front, Sectorists etc mentioned by Saw will either coalesce under the Alliance to Restore the Republic or be driven further to the fringes.

The thrust of Nemik's manifesto is that freedom is a natural state of being, while oppression is unnatural, and even though Andor has nothing to do with the Jedi it nonetheless echoes their philosophy: that the Force is in a natural state of balance, while the existence of the Sith who tap into the Dark Side upset this balance. As we see in Return of the Jedi, the balance is ultimately restored by the return to that natural state buffeted by the most powerful forces - friendship, love, sacrifice - forces that ultimately drive Cassian as well. While much has been said of the moral ambiguity and nuance of Andor, it's not incongruent with the OT, if anything it reinforces its power and message.

HOWEVER, I have my nits to pick - the lack of aliens is a serious flaw (and in particular, the lack of familiar aliens). In some cases they can get away with it and make subtle commentary - Coruscant is stark and grey as the centre of bureaucracy in stark contrast to the vibrant metropolis of the PT. Seeing the streets populated almost exclusively by humans where once it was a melting pot underscores the Empire’s segregationist policies. However the dearth of non-humans elsewhere - Ferrix, Aldhani, even the prison labour camp Narkina 5 - is disconcerting. These are places meant to depict the oppressive rule of the Empire and this undermines the strength of the rebellion as a group of diverse species fighting against the Imperial monoculture. It's odd, for example, that we see all the characters from Ferrix return except Vetch, the muscle employed "just to stand there" by Nurchi (a nice moment with Cassian!), and that Maarva's funeral procession seems entirely human.

Ultimately, I think the setup is much stronger than the payoff, and while I appreciate the slow burn, the show does have sometimes have difficulty juggling the plots. Once set up, characters are parked waiting to be incorporated into the narrative (it feels like we watch Syril stare at his cereal forever) and looking back not much actually happens to a lot of them- there are a lot of threads left hanging and not much resolution. Which is of course because this was only intended to be season 1 of 5, with each arc a year of Cassian’s life leading up to Rogue One. But sadly Andor has been given a second season only, leaving 12 episodes to wrap everything up, so ultimately I fear the show will feel like a slow setup and rushed conclusion, which is a real shame.

Cassian Andor

I’m went into this as someone who doesn’t really have a strong connection to Cassian as a character - I certainly liked him in Rogue One! But let’s just say he’s not my blorbo. And this not the backstory I would have expected for the character five years before Rogue One as someone who has “been in this fight since [he] was six years old.”

Diego Luna has such a charismatic presence and it is nice to have a more internal, insular character, but it’s kind of sad that Cassian is really the least developed character in a show ostensibly about him. It’s not really his story, but he’s the fulcrum (pun intended) around which most of the other characters pivot; this is a story of the rebellion of which he is just one part. So, I can see if Cassian fans may have been upset by his lack of focus, and I personally would have wanted to delve a bit deeper into Cassian Andor on a show called Andor, you know? And it does feel a little bit skeevy that the actual Axis (pun intended) of the show is Luthen in his middle age white man glory, with a whiff of Gilroy’s self-insert about him.

I do wish LFL would abandon simply naming their shows after the main character - presumably it’s for general audience recognition and algorithmic reasons, but my god how boring. If the show had been marketed as the ensemble it actually is I would take less issue with the lack of Cassian focus. But sadly I’m not sure we know that much more about Cassian at the end of the show than we did at the end of the first three episodes - or really, what it adds to his character and arc we see in Rogue One.

Yes he’s further radicalised by his experiences and is now presumably "all in" on the rebellion, but the events of the show are kicked off by Cassian searching for his sister which is a motivation that is all but dropped thereafter - although at one point I was half-expecting (dreading) it to be revealed that Luthen's assistant Kleya Marki was Kerri (and sidebar, Kleya - what a stone cold bitch! I love a stone cold bitch).

This plot will likely continue in season 2, but it felt a bit undercooked and too deep in the subtext given the prominence it had in kicking off the narrative. We get a flashback to Cassian’s childhood, but ultimately it feels like lipservice to his Indigenous heritage rather than true engagement since we don't see him reflect on it in any way, nor does it seem to have any impact on his choices throughout the series that seem primarily motivated by his life and relationships on Ferrix.

We get a strong start to Cassian and Luthen that peters out - he's intent on recruiting Cassian, but then writes him off when Cassian flees after Aldhani and wants him killed, then goes all the way to Ferrix for him, but is about to leave without actually doing anything? I know Luthen's meant to be ambiguous, but this is one area where plot is obviously driving things not character. I get that it was important for Cassian to be the one to go to Luthen at the end and choose the Rebellion unfetted, but the relationship is undercooked. I almost feel like the series is a procession of things that happen to Cassian rather than a journey I was on with him. There's external forces, but very little internal focus.

However, what I did love about the show was the thematic resonance that was happening on a macro and micro level - while the show as a whole is a mirror/reflection of the OT, we also see dichotomy in the character pairings that are mirrors and/or foils of each other in various ways - we have the two sides of the conflict being Empire and Rebellion (with Cassian stuck in the middle), and we are also shown conflict within those two sides.

Cassian is without a reflective character pairing because his true mirror is Jyn Erso, and seeing Cassian’s struggles here does give real weight to his “you’re not the only one who lost everything” speech - in many ways the show is his journey from being Jyn, to being the man who says to her “we don't all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something.”

Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael

The most obvious mirror/foil pair as the two sides of the Rebellion, although arguably we have a third prong in Saw Gerrara, and kind of a mirror in Luthen as Cassian’s mentor as Saw was Jyn’s - and I do wonder about the show that was a two-handed prequel with Cassian and Jyn growing up in different factions of the Rebellion, but alas.

The artifact Luthen gives Mon represents “a sun goddess and a serpent sharing the same mouth” representing their differing philosophical approach to fighting the Empire. As mirror characters they are alike in many ways - both of the privileged class and living double lives on Coruscant, but while Mon makes political efforts to move the needle on the Empire's activities in the Senate while also funneling money to direct but small rebel efforts, Luthen outright pokes the bear, sacrifices allies, and knowingly making things worse to swell the ranks of the rebellion on the hope it will speed up progress. There's more than a hint of the incrementalism/revolutionary dichotomy here.

It also raises a lot of interesting questions without (rightly) providing many answers - the struggle of the oppressed, the moral weight of insurgency and revolution. Is it right to intentionally provoke an oppressive power into reacting with violence in order to fuel a greater pushback against them? Is short term suffering justified if it achieves eventual victory, and is it right for the few to decide what is a justifiable sacrifice? What are our responsibilities to each other under the threat of/struggle against authoritarianism? As social commentary it's more timely than ever.

Whether Mon or Luthen is right for the viewer to decide, although as Leia tells Tarkin in ANH: "the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." On the other hand, we know Mon survives to the end of the Empire while Luthen (I assume) will not. She will become a leading figure in the Alliance, and eventual Chancellor of the New Republic, while he will be another stone at the bottom of the pond.

This is foreshadowed in the dialogue (with a direct mirror reference):

“I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life, to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see. No, the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience, or the light of gratitude."

Arguably however, the mirror is the show - we are the audience.

We know Cassian joins Luthen at the end of season 1, and will meet Mon in season 2, so it will be interesting to see him struggle between these two philosophies, although we can infer from Rogue One that he aligns himself (out of necessity) with Luthen's veiwpoint:

"We've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion. Spies, saboteurs, assassins....And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in. A cause that was worth it. Without that, we're lost."

Ultimately, the Rebellion needs people like Luthen and Cassian to make not only the physical sacrifice, but the moral one as well (noting our first introduction to Cassian is him killing an informant so he can escape) - people who play the Empire's game so Luke can ultimately reject the Emperor's.

But I had mixed feelings on the Mon Mothma storyline. It feels a bit off for Luthen to be her entrée into the Rebellion, when we know she’s been on the ground from the very beginning with the Petition of the 2000 (cut from ROTS, but still canon I assume). She just felt very isolated and fragile which is at odds with her quiet steel that we see in Return of the Jedi and Rogue One. I could maybe see this Mon in the early dark days, but only 5 years before ANH? A scene with Bail Organa would not have gone amiss just to give breadth to her rebellious activities.

We get to see Luthen visit Saw Gerrara on Segra Milo, why not give Mon a scene with Bail to show she has other irons in the fire rather than relying on Luthen? In Saw we see the rough and tumble of disparate rebel factions, I would have liked to see the political machinations of Mon and Bail to serve the metaphor even further.

She is more than just a bank for the rebellion, and I think in the effort to contrast Luthen and Mon there was a bit of disservice done to the latter.

And Mon’s loser husband - ugh. Okay they’re in some kind of arranged marriage but there’s very little substance, nothing us particularly revealed about Mon by including him. Other than her cleverly using his gambling debts to deflect her rebellion spending at the end, the story wouldn’t really have changed by him not existing, and in fact would have been improved by focusing more on Mon’s difficult relationship with her daughter.

But on a purely shallow note, I want her wardrobe!

Dedra Meero and Syril Karn

In some ways Cassian and Syril are the narrative foils and there are parallels between them - their conflict instigated in the first episodes, their maternal relationships, both essentially exiles for the middle section before both end up back on Ferrix where Cassian saves Bix and Syril saves Dedra. But I feel Syril and Dedra work better as mirrors, and their arcs also parallel and intersect.

In the Empire, Dedra and Syril are two sides of the other coin (there's quite a few coins in this metaphor). Regimes need bureaucracy, and you have the true believers, the status-climbers, and those just going along to get along. In Dedra we have the talented star of the prestigious Imperial Security Bureau, and in Syril the over eager Corporate Security officer, two arms of the Empire’s control, although the latter we see becoming obsolete as the former gains more control.

But they're both middlemen who chafe against the inaction of their superiors, both desperate to rise above their station (although those stations are quite far apart). Throughout the series their plots are mostly in parallel; they are reflections of each other without even having met.

It's uncomfortable to watch both of them on screen - all unblinking stares, sucked in cheeks, and pursed lips - fittingly repellent. I’m surprised Gilroy has said he wrote Dedra to be relatable - she skeeved me out from the first, someone clearly ready to step over anyone and everyone if it served her purposes rather than someone gradually drawn further into an authoritarian regime. There's the slight subtext of sexism - there's only one other women in the ISB briefing and Pendergast alludes to it, but that certainly didn't engender any sympathy or admiration from me.

In episode 7 Syril’s mother Eedy says “Everything says something, Syril” and chastises him about tailoring his uniform (just as he did in the first episode, a neat little character tell), and immediately after we see Dedra donning her uniform perfectly in sync with the rest of the ISB. He’s trying to stand out from the crowd, she’s trying to fit in - or, from a different perspective, Syril adjusts his collar to resemble the Imperial style as a signifier of where he wants to be, while Dedra is already there and still looking higher.

But both are thinking outside the rigid Imperial lines and command structures, both on the hunt for Cassian - although for Syril it's personal and Dedra it's about climbing the ranks. Both take it upon themselves to investigate against orders, but Syril’s attempts are clumsy and random while Dedra’s are clinical and targeted.

She identifies that “systems either change or die” to push the ISB’s fragmented and bureaucratic inefficiencies into a cohesive power structure, but while it wins her approval it doesn’t earn her any loyalty; her troops abandon her to the mob on Ferrix. Inexplicably though, Syril does manage to gain the loyalty of Sergeant Mosk, who was also punished for the initial blunder on Ferrix, but ultimately draws Syril back there to in search of Cassian.

The point at which they first intersect in episode 8, Dedra is on an upswing, she holds the power and sends Syril further down, but when they meet again in episode 11, the roles are reversed as he is the one to save her from the mob.

I just hope they’re going somewhere more interesting than his creepy crush.

Vel Sartha and Cinta Kaz

One of the major faults of Rogue One was its Smurfette Syndrome, where Jyn is a great female character surrounded by men, but Andor has pleasingly course corrected from this. See what happens when you don’t have one woman having to embody everything and bear the weight of her entire gender in the narrative (and therefore, also bear the criticism)? Andor happily treats its women as characters, not faux-empowering meme-fodder. Although there is perhaps some valid commentary that it’s still white women on the whole - Dedra, Mon, Vel, Maarva - who get the meatier roles, and I have my issues with Mon’s characterisation, but one thing I will give Disney LFL credit for is it’s ongoing efforts towards gender parity.

In Vel and Cinta we have two more sides of insurgency - from wealth and privilege in Vel, the cousin of Mon Mothma struggling with the weight of it all, to Cinta with her cold fire and unwavering drive, her family killed by stormtroopers and for whom the struggle will always come first.

Cinta’s cool reserve is a contrast to Vel’s nerves (as seen in the Aldhani raid); they’re coming from very different places even if their cause is the same. There may even be a bit of classism in the subtext - Vel leads the mission on Aldhani after asking for the mission from Luthen, when really Cinta is the one who is most committed, and she has to push Vel though several times when she falters.

Vel still has one foot in the Imperial world and the complications of rebellious machinations - worried for Mon and her family, wanting to prove herself to Luthen, jockeying with Kleya - but for Cinta none of that matters, she loves Vel but there's often a sense she's disappointed in her. There's a dichotomy within Cinta - she's not unfeeling, showing kindness to Cassian when he joins their group, yet accepting the mission to kill him later without hesitation.

It seems to me that Cinta is the revolutionary Vel wants to be but can't quite divest herself of enough to become - the metaphor is made explicit with these two - Cinta tells Vel: “I’m a mirror. You love me because I show you what you need to see.”

Which is a pretty interesting dynamic, especially as a romantic one, and I’m interested to see where it will go (and hope that Cinta will get more focus, even though I do love Vel a lot too).

Their storyline did run out of steam by the end through, was there any point to either of these characters being on Ferrix at the end? It very much felt like all the plot lines were being forced to intersect at the climax without all of them necessarily needing to. Although Cinta stabbing that guy in the heart was pretty cathartic.

Bix Callen, Maarva Andor, and Ferrix

I loved Ferrix as a location, with its own distinct aesthetic, culture, and populace - the work gloves all hung on the wall, the metal tapping warning system, the daily hammer and anvil (the Time Grappler, according to Wookieepedia), funerary practices. etc. The first few episodes set up Cassian’s community on Ferrix which we come full circle on in the final two, but I did have some trouble keeping track of who was who at that point.

It is interesting that the trope of “just another brick in the wall” is turned on its head here - rather than representing a cog in the machine, in Ferrix ashes of the deceased are mixed with brick and added to a wall in remembrance - a literal touchstone for Cassian as he remembers his adoptive father Clem. A wall is strong, a bulwark against outside forces, and every brick added makes it stronger. Stones dropped in a pond, bricks built into a wall - reminders of the dead that spur the will to fight.

I do love the relationship between Maarva and Cassian, especially in a franchise that has never really had an interest in mothers and sons. And we have another mirror in the overcritical and cold relationship between Syril and Eedy as the inverse of Cassian’s complicated but loving one with Maarva - contrast the reception Syril gets when he returns home to the one Cassian gets from Maarva, as ultimately Eedy's pointed disappointment is sharp where Maarva's is borne from love and concern for Cassian.

But again there’s a disconnect with the history we’re shown - Maarva and Clem kidnap/save Kassa from Kenari but we don’t really get any sense of how Cassian feels about it or the connection he has to his heritage/childhood. I’m not saying I need everything spelled out, but sometimes I feel the show does err too much on the side of subtext, and as a result we don’t delve as deep into some of the relationships as we could have. Even her final message to Cassian - that she loves him more than anything he could ever do wrong - is a beautiful sentiment, but is it earned? He hasn't really done anything wrong, arguably she did wrong by him by taking him from Kenari but it's never even mentioned, it doesn’t even seem to be a factor in their relationship as adults.

On the other hand, I didn’t mind the treatment of the post-romantic relationship between Cassian and Bix - there’s a sense of history there but it didn’t need to be explored further. Bix's involvement in the Rebellion is interesting though, it's implied she was recruited by Kleya through the black market but are her motives purely profit or does she have rebellious fervor? Luthen knows of Cassian through Bix - did she see him as a candidate for the Rebellion or just another person from whom Luthen could obtain tech? What piqued Luthen's interest from what Bix said about him?

I don't think all these questions need answers, but it is unfortunate that she does get a bit Damseled, spending most of the runtime threatened, captured, and then tortured. On the other hand, there's less to criticise in employing that trope when it's not the only one at work and the breadth of female characters on the show.

I do wonder if we will see Bix, Brasso, and B2EMO again though, or if they’re a part of Cassian’s past he had to leave behind to fully commit himself to the Rebellion.

On nostalgia, fanservice, and the state of the Star Wars universe

A tangent into my frustrations with the sequel trilogy, skip if you’re allergic to salt.

Andor has been lauded for its lack of fanservice, although I’d actually argue it’s a show that (perhaps despite Gilroy's intention) is rooted in nostalgia. Well, perhaps not nostalgia per se, but it’s a show that relies on the audience’s knowledge and affection of Rogue One and the Original Trilogy, and it’s successful because it manages to feel authentic and fulfilling rather than ham-fisted and overly meta - a story set in the Star Wars universe, not about the Star Wars universe.

I know Gilroy intended this to be able to stand alone, but would the story have the same resonance if we weren't aware where Cassian's path leads, that the efforts and actions of Mon and Luthern, Vel and Cinta, Nemik, Bix and Kleya, are ultimately justified? Perhaps it would work in a generic sci-fi setting rather than the GFFA, but would we feel as much watching it? Personally, I think not.

Because nostalgia isn’t inherently bad. It’s a vital part of how we consume media - the stories that resonate with us in childhood will continue to resonate in adulthood because they are foundational, it's a shortcut to that incredible feeling of discovering something new that's nonetheless something very old. It's partly why Star Wars was such a success in the first place - a mix of myth and fairy tale, matinee serial and Kurosawa - a familiar story told in a new way. And like in Hadestown, "we're gonna sing it again and again."

The problem with nostalgia is when it’s empty; window dressing intended to evoke that feeling but without any substance behind it, so it feels cheap and unsatisfying. Andor doesn’t completely escape from this (blue milk, mouse droid), but most inclusions feel organic.

Sometimes I think we go to far decrying fanservice, and of course it's subjective - as I like to say, everyone hates it until they’re the fan being serviced. But there is criticism, and then there's dismissing any references to existing material as mere "fanservice" and therefore contemptible. For example, I’ve seen the treatment of Luke, Han, and Leia in the sequel trilogy defended because to actually have them interact at all would be “silly fanservice” rather than natural because, you know, they’re family.

The difference, for me, is does inclusion of a known character/object/trope/line of dialogue serve the character and/or story, or is it Leo DiCaprio pointing meme, designed for “hey it’s the thing” nostalgia and YouTube compilations with no substance behind it? Ultimately, is the inclusion Watsonian or Doylist - and if the latter, what of the former justifies it.

Mon Mothma or Saw Gerrara in Andor doesn’t feel like fanservice even though they’re existing characters, because it makes sense to include them in a story about the Rebellion’s beginning and they had a part to play in Rogue One, to which Andor is ostensibly a prequel. Conversely Leia and Vader’s inclusion in Obi-Wan Kenobi (even if I did enjoy them both) tip over in the side of fanservice because they really have no place in Obi-Wan’s story at that point and require fanwanking around their dialogue in ANH (and to be fair, Lucas was guilty of this as well). I don’t need to see random object or minor character no 6 from the PT/OT/Clone Wars, iconic catch phrase shoved where it doesn’t make sense, or obscure Legends reference divorced from context, just tell me a good story! Give me characters to care about! Make me feel something! Andor did that, where much of the other Disney Star Wars content has not.

This is my fundamental, and possibly at this point, irreconcilable, issue. Disney wanted to get away from Lucas-associated Star Wars as quickly as possible, replacing every character, planet, and theme with their own wholly Disney counterpart, killing off Han, Luke, and Leia so the old and classic couldn’t distract from the shiny and new, tearing down the conclusion of the original trilogy only to try and tell the exact same story (just not as well). They did it so quickly and so shoddily that many were understandably unsatisfied, leaving Disney to frantically course correct, going back to the well and shoving nostalgia bait into every conceivable project even (especially) if it had no place.

If they’d actually had any sort of plan for the sequel trilogy, if they’d made their focus to conclude the Skywalker Saga in a way that even approached emotional resonance, imo the vast majority of the audience would be happy to move on and embrace the next chapter - new characters, new stories. But people can’t move on from the characters they love because the treatment of those characters and the post-ROTJ timeline was so unsatisfying. Luke wouldn’t have needed to show up in The Mandolorian to try and placate the fans if treatment of the character in the ST hasn’t been so abysmal.

So LFL have been stuck in this weird ancillary storytelling space, where every project seemingly needs to be adjacent to the Skywalker Saga but not actually engaging with the Saga direct - Han has a prequel film no one asked for, Rey is a Skywalker for name recognition only, Luke pops up in pointless cameos but isn’t there when he arguably should be (just recast the damn role already!), we get young Leia in a story where she has no place rather than in one she does, who knows what’s going on with the whole Ashoka/Thrawn/Heir to the Empire stuff, Boba Fett is There with a parade of Hey it’s that character/ship/thing with no contribution to the actual storytelling.

What does this have to do with Andor? Well, Andor is perhaps the only quality tv product of the Disney era, which is fitting since Rogue One is imo the only quality film of the Disney era (TFA being retroactively diminished by what came after). Andor is the type of story Star Wars should be telling - expanding the universe, using known elements and characters where it makes sense to do so, not a collection of ideas on a whiteboard thrown in front of an LED screenstage and a bunch of meaningless easter eggs.

To be fair, this does seem what they are attempting to do with The Acolyte (which I am actually enjoying!) but the planned Rey-focused post-ST film…eh. Admittedly I never bothered to watch Rise of Skywalker, but where can the story possibly go? Is there any investment at all after the mess that was the sequel trilogy? I can’t see how the narrative can possibly be redeemed at this point, which is a shame because I do believe it started with a lot of promise in The Force Awakens that was squandered by a lack of vision, planning, and oversight, and the bizarre need to brutalise and kill off the legacy characters, marginalise the genuinely original and interesting new characters, and waste the immense acting talent they had at their disposal.

They’ve made no meaningful in-universe progress after the ST, the New Republic and Jedi have to be rebuilt again, except Rey is going to do it this time somehow, so what what the point of the last 30 years in the timeline? It’s different with Andor - we know where his story ends, but the series only makes Cassian’s sacrifice stronger, there’s emotional resonance in seeing his journey to Rogue One in knowing that it’s in service of the overall victory of the Rebellion (however undermined that victory is made by the ST).

But I digress. This rant really ended up being kind of off topic - apologies.

Anyway. Andor is good! I liked it! Looking forward to season 2!

[linkspooky]

Hello! Is it alright if I ask for writing help? This idea has been shuffling around my head for a few months now. I really want to solidify this idea but I'm struggling to figure which fandom to place him in. They don't have big motivations, no "I want to save everyone" or "I want to live a meaningful life". They're motivated by day to day things, like "I want to buy that new game" and "I want to have sushi for dinner". However this OC is also a big coward, and refuses to give his life for anyone but himself. Essentially, "I am me, I exist. And I want to keep existing."

I'm tempted to put him in JJK, but given the themes of it I don't think he'd last long. Or even be that powerful, if this isn't your thing please ignore and I'm sorry for bothering you!

So I can't really write your own characters for you, so to try to give you advice, I'll describe the process of how I came to create Michikatsu Gojo, my favorite OC that I've written for my Nobody Dies Au.

The first thing before you even start is you can't afraid to have your character be a part of the world. You especially can't be afraid of having your character interact with canon characters. That is literally the point of fanfiction to put the canon characters in made up scenarios. Your own ocs can be one such device for putting characters into scenarios.

People always say they hate reading ocs in fic, but what they really mean is they hate reading bad ocs. Often I think the problem is people are too afraid to make their ocs plot important, so they turn into nothing burger characters. Why is this character here if they don't add something to the story? Or they intentionally flatten their ocs because they're too afraid of taking attention away from the canon characters.

The best thing to do is just let your ocs interact with canon characters. Let them be plot important. It's alright as long as they contribute something to the original story you're trying to tell. If you want your imaginary little guy to interact with Yuji and Co go for it.

I usually get the feedback of "I don't usually like Ocs, but I like yours." I'm sure there are people who don't like how much I use Ocs in my fanfics, but I assume if it's against their personal taste they just don't read. At some point you just have to accept that either people will like your story choices or they won't.

So that out of the way the first thing is to try to find a place in the story you want to tell, whether it's just a brainfic, or an actual fic you want to write out. With Michi I started out with "I want to do backstory for Gojo Satoru. Gege is never going to tell us anything of substance about the Gojo clan so I'm going to make up my own."

So I created Michikatsu. Gojo's cousin. Someone who grew up in the Gojo clan alongside Gojo. However, while Gojo was blessed and spoiled, Michikatsu because he wasn't born with a good technique was reviled. They are both shaped by the corruption of the Gojo clan albeit in opposite ways. They are connected, and are technically family but in a distant way. Michikatsu is a cousin, he's not a sibling. They did know each other growing up but you couldn't say they were childhood friends or anything. Michiktasu is the foil to Gojo, Gojo is blessed and Michikatsu is curssed, Gojo is strong and Michikatsu is weak.

They also have very different ideologies. Gojo only values strength and only takes an interest in strong people. Michikatsu believes that there's a strength in weak people trying and struggling to live their lives even if they're not strong like Gojo or like Yuji. Gojo is recruiting strong kids to his child army, Michikatsu wants to spare weak children like Junpei, Mimiko and Nanako etc.

So Michikatsu is basically crafted entirely around Gojo to be his shadow and his foil. His main plot purpose is to further characterize Gojo, shed light on his backstory, and inform you of certain things about Gojo by contrasting and comparing to Michi.

The next thing is to try to focus in on the central idea of your character. Characters are just ideas after all. Michi's central theme is motherhood. His central philosophy is that there are no bad children. Therefore there are no bad victims. His goal is to become a teacher like Gojo, but unlike Gojo who wants to teach children sorcery Michi wants to teach them math. Unlike Gojo who wants to reform the sorcery world, Michi wants to take his little family and run away from the sorcery world entirely. Gojo takes in strong students, Michi wants to protect weak children. Gojo can't save bad victims while Michi believes that no children are truly bad so he always saves the bad victims.

I know I'm making it sound like Michi is a better person that Gojo, but like, Michi hung around with Geto and he was fine with Geto murdering people and only drew the line at murdering children. Gojo sacrifices the few to save the many. Michi can only save a few people, and isn't powerful enough to stop the deaths of many people.

Michi also doesn't really care. If a child dies right in front of him he'll care. If a hundred people die, as long as they're not children he wouldn't really care.

So you could really just have a character motivated by only the small things in life. "I want sushi for dinner" is valid. Miwa and Kusakabe both don't have any grander motivations or notions of being a sorcerer it's just a shitty job for both of them. I think your character could be like a person who's like "Well, I can't kill myself because I want to see a new episode of the anime next week." That's as valid a motivation to live as anyone else.

Of course you have to come up with curse technique after that, and remember that curse technique should be a metaphor for personality. Michikatsu's curse technique is mind controlling people and turning corpses into puppets, because Michi has had to learn to become a manipulative person in order to survive. Gojo's technique makes it impossible for anyone to touch him because he believes he's truly above everyone to the point of not being able to interact with the world or being understood by other people.

Character design wise I also wanted Michikatsu to compare and contrast with Gojo. Gojo is albino and pale as possible, Michikatsu is brown skinned, has brown hair, but otherwise similiar face shape and hair to Gojo. They're both unnaturally tall and thin. Gojo is someone who is the ideal of jujutsu Society and fits the mold perfectly, whereas Michi is someone who'd be discriminated against because he's biracial. He's immediately identifiable as different.

I'd also say that I made Michi openly queer, because Gojo is queer too but it's relegated to subtext in the story. Gojo has the most queer relationship with Geto ever but they never say it out loud. Michi is just, he's bigender. He is a woman. He uses He / She pronouns interchangably. He'll show up in suits and dresses. He'll be dressed like a man and be like "Damn, I am a gorgeous woman." He only sleeps with men, but it's okay, if you're a straight man you can still be straight and sleep with him because he's a woman. He will adopt you and be your mommy if you want him too.

When it comes to making a character, what's most important of all is making all the details of that character reinforce that central idea, or at least characterize them further. That's the best advice I can give you.

[sofya-fanfics]

Their Secret Relationship

Fandom : Fairy Tail

Relationship : Gajeel x Levy, Nastu x Juvia

My Year of the OTP 2023 contribution for the prompt : secret relationship (reveal).

I’m sorry for the mistakes, English is not my native language. I hope you like it.

Summary : Levy looked at Natsu and Juvia. That’s strange, she thought, how long had they been friends ? Of course, Juvia was close to everyone at the guild and Natsu would do anything for its members, who were family to him. However, Levy did not remember ever seeing them talk together, much less have lunch.

Disclaimer : Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.

@yearoftheotpevent

AO3 / FF.NET

Levy looked at Natsu and Juvia. That’s strange, she thought, how long had they been friends ? Of course, Juvia was close to everyone at the guild and Natsu would do anything for its members, who were family to him. However, Levy did not remember ever seeing them talk together, much less have lunch.

It was noon and most of the Fairy Tail members were having lunch at the guild. Levy was waiting for Gajeel. Natsu, Juvia and Happy were a few tables away from hers. Therefore, she had the opportunity to watch them. Usually, Natsu and Happy would have lunch together or with other members of their team, especially Lucy. And if Juvia did not have lunch with her or Gajeel, she spent most of her time with Cana and Lisanna. Something is going on, Levy was sure of it.

“What are you looking at ?”

Levy jumped. She was so focused on watching Natsu and Juvia that she did not notice Gajeel and Panther Lily approaching. Gajeel was behind her. He leaned over her to look in the same direction as her. Panther Lily was on his shoulder.

“Do you know how long they’ve been friends ?” Levy asked.

“Natsu and Juvia ? They are not friends.”

Gajeell straightened up and sat across from her, preventing her to see the dragon slayer and water mage table. As for Panther Lily, he sat at the other end of the table.

“Happy told me they were hired for a mission a month or two ago,” the Exceed said. “They must have gotten closer at this point.”

Levy frowned. She felt there was something else.

******

A few days later, Levy and Juvia were in a children's clothing store. Levy was four months pregnant and Juvia wanted to take her shopping for her future child.

“It’s never too early to prepare,” Juvia had told her.

Levy had to admit that she was right and everything she saw in this store made her happy.

“Look what Juvia found.”

She showed her a little yellow onesie with a smiling sun sewn on the front.

“Juvia knows what she’s going to get you.”

“You do not have to.”

Juvia shook her head and smiled at her.

“That makes Juvia happy.”

She walked over to the cash register to pay for the onesie. Levy could not help smiling. As soon as she knew she was pregnant, Juvia proclaimed herself aunt of her future child.

“Gajeel was my only family for years,” she had told her. “So it’s normal that I’m there for you when you need it.”

Levy was lucky to have someone like Juvia in her life. She looked out the window and she saw Natsu and Happy walking on the street. Natsu carried his backpack, like when he went on a mission. Juvia approached, holding a bag containing the onesie.

“What's the matter ?” she asked.

“It looks like Natsu is going to leave the city.”

“He goes on a mission for two days.”

“How do you know ?”

“He told Juvia about it yesterday.”

Levy looked at her, surprised. She thought back to when she had seen them having lunch together a few days ago. Which meant they had seen each other again.

“You spend a lot of time together.”

Juvia looked away and Levy frowned.

“Not so much, Juvia ran into him by chance.”

“Lily told me you went on a mission together.”

Juvia nodded and walked towards a table where different items were placed.

“Look at these bootees. It’s so cute.”

Levy knew she was trying to change the conversation. There was something going on between Juvia and Natsu, she was sure of it. But she would not say anything. If Juvia did not want to talk about it, Levy would not press her.

******

“I'm sure they're in a relationship,” Levy said, giving a screwdriver to Gajeel.

“Who ?” He answered, taking the screwdriver.

They were in the bedroom they were converting for their child and Gajeel was putting the crib together.

“Juvia and Natsu.”

“What are you talking about ?”

“Haven't you seen how they behave, the way they look at each other ? And I often saw them together.”

“You imagine things. Juvia never paid attention to Natsu.”

“Things change. Especially after what happened with Gray.”

Gajeel groaned. Everyone in the guild knew about Juvia's feelings for Gray. Unfortunately, he did not feel the same. Juvia had overheard a conversation between Gray and Erza, where he told her that he was not in love with Juvia and that he would never be. When he realized that she had heard him, he apologized, telling her that he did not want her to find out like that. Juvia had not blamed him, but she had been heartbroken. Gajeel, on the other hand, still had not forgiven Gray for hurting Juvia.

As for Natsu, Levy suspected that he was in love with Lucy. But she never realized it and when she was in a relationship, Levy saw sadness in Natsu's eyes.

“I think she might be happy with Ntsu.”

“With that idiot ? He's even dumber than Gray.”

Levy lightly hit his arm. Yet, she could not get the idea out of her head. And if they really were a couple, she would be happy for her two friends.

******

Three months had passed. The first snowflakes of winter had replaced the red leaves of autumn. Levy was seven months pregnant with twins. She still had a hard time believing it. It was both wonderful and frightening. But she knew everything was going to be okay with Gajeel by her side.

Night had fallen. They were coming home. In the distance, Levy saw Juvia and Natsu. They were smiling at each other and they were close, very close. So close that Levy thought for a moment they were going to kiss. She suddenly stopped walking.

“Is Everything all right ?” Gajeel asked, worried.

Levy nodded and pointed at Juvia and Natsu who had moved away from each other.

“Look.”

Gajeel stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

“You’re at it again.”

Levit pouted. Gajeel did not believe her when she told him that Natsu and Juvia were a couple. Each time, he told her that she had too much imagination. And Levy had no proof for what she was saying. Just her instinct.

Without thinking about what she was doing, she approached Natsu and Juvia. She heard Gajeel calling her, but she did not stop. Her friends did not see her arriving and they kissed.

“I knew it !” Levy cried out.

Natsu and Juvia jumped and moved away from each other.

“I can’t believe it, you were right,” Gajeel said, opening his eyes wide.

The dragon slayer and the water mage blushed and exchanged a look.

“Why didn’t you tell me ?” Gajeel asked Juvia.

She looked at Gajeel guiltily.

“Juvia’s sorry. She wanted to tell you, but...”

She looked at Natsu, as if she was searching for help and comfort. Levy could see how bad she felt for lying to them. Especially to Gajeel.

“We wanted to keep our story to ourselves. Without anyone getting involved or judging us.”

“And after what happened with Gray-san, Juvia was worried about what you would think. Do you forgive us ?”

Gajeel sighed.

“Are you happy ?”

“Juvia is very happy.”

“So that's all that matters. Even if it's with this idiot.”

“Hey !” Natsu cried out.

He glared at him, annoyed. Levy laughed lightly at his reaction. She approached Juvia and took her in her arms.

“I'm happy for you.”

Juvia smiled and put her arms around Levy. Even if Natsu and Juvia were different, she knew they would be happy together. And no matter how anyone would react when they would learn of their relationship, she would be there to support them.

The end

[stardustdiiving]

Got tagged by @/kanonavi! 20 fanfic writer questions thing

1. How many fics do you have on AO3?

UMMM. I think around 13 probably. I anon or orphan a lot of old stuff

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

32.2k words…probably at least an extra 10k in orphaned stuff though

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Its been solely genshin since 2022. Usually something needs to be a primary tier fandom hyperfixation for me to even think about writing fanfic for it , and then even then I rarely finish more than 1-3 fics for it. Genshin broke this streak bc something shifted in my brain and I’ve finished around a dozen things for it somehow

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1) source of inspiration (genshin — makoto, ei, wanderer character study) — 541 kudos

2) better days (genshin — zhongli & xiao erosion fic) — 254 kudos

3) Pattern Recognition (genshin — wanderer & Nahida sickfic) — 254 kudos

4) are you happy? (genshin — postcanon wanderer & nahida) — 142 kudos

5) marvel fic I wrote when I was 15 — 97 kudos

The 1st and 3rd most kudoed fics were actually the first genshin fic I wrote + the first and only bnha fic I wrote when I was 16 but they don’t count because they’re like my disowned children who I should probably orphan but don’t in case I want the option to delete them? I feel they were made before I really processed how to characterize the characters n what sector of fanon I wanted to contribute to, so they’re really like, generic fandom tropey to me and vastly different compared to how I usually write in a way I find kind of unbearable. I am really deliberate in my art n writing in trying to appeal to my own specific n niche fandom tastes so to help me find a similar crowd of people to hang out with and am usually pretty successful in nailing the niche. But for these fics it feels I not only didn’t try to target my own tastes I somehow managed to write something I feel only people who like the fanon I actively don’t vibe with would like ?!? I have no idea how that happened!

it would be if I somehow managed to write a hat radish fic that had “maternal Nahida and her edgy teen son Wanderer” written all over the characterization as if this is not fanon I actively dislike and a lot of how I write hat radish is often motivated by me trying to fulfill my own preferences because I find them in conflict with a lot of fic I read about them? JSDJDNDJ. Itd be like. Where did that come from. How was this written by me. Its one thing to not like my work but how do I have a finished thing I fundamentally disagree with on all grounds that make up my interest in why I may want to write fic about a certain thing in the first place. Disowned child moment

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

YEAH always even if I’m slow too. This is an extension of my habit with my art I usually always respond to every comment on my work I get even if it just feels like me repeating thank you over and over bc i like to acknowledge people who r interested in what I’m doing as much as possible to convey I appreciate it. I think it’s always helped in building a sense of community/connection w ppl which is what I’m more interested in as opposed to quantity of interactions

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Idk why this keeps happening but at least half my fics fall under “bittersweet” to “hurt no comfort” territory because I . Hmm. love character study that invokes complicated or ambiguous emotions. I think that’s the trend here

Id probably nominate someone to watch me die?. Its a xiaoven fic that was born out of me being interested portraying a xiaoven dynamic that felt at least somewhat believable characterization wise but pitched studying how venti & xiao’s deep rooted issues could clash with each other in a relationship in a way that’s rlly accidental and tragic when put with their feasible compatibility n care for each other. I have it on anon bc I have weirdly mixed feelings for it bc it feels like a xiaoven fic that probably appeals to any faction of xiao or venti fan who isn’t big on xv far more than a xv shipper

But idk how to advertise it as that bc it’s not like that audience would be in the xv tag?? and it’s specifically romantic xv so it categorically should be there. But it being in the tag feels weirdly hostile to me. I guess I feel it comes off as a fic that exists to be kinda contrarian and hostile to most ppls enjoyment of xiaoven but that wasn’t my intention :( it was made out of my own enjoyment of xiaoven….i just process romance weirdly and I think am more down with ship fic where the ship is kinda depressingly dysfunctional more than other ppl may be. I like the fic quite a bit but I just don’t feel it has a place to Go fandom environment wise

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I HAVE. no idea I feel like no fic I have up leaves off with emotions that are meant to be solely happy. The closest I get is bittersweet . Um. The scripted end of pattern recognition would take this spot but it like. Doesn’t exist yet (but it will…soon…..w)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

HM. I don’t think I ever have. Probably in part I don’t write enough for it

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Look at this shrimp 🦐

10. Do you write crossovers? If so, what's the craziest one you've ever written?

I actually love fandom crossovers as indulgent thinking exercises but I usually never get indulgent enough to write fic about it. However I did write a 30k Steven universe gravity falls crossover where the GF characters were SU gems in 2 months when I was 12 and I have no idea how I did that but it was crazy. Thats still the longest thing I’ve written . It was so much

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nah

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone translated a fan comic of mine I made when I was 13 a few times but never a fanfic iirc

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Surprisingly no!

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I do shipping in such a weird specific way. My go to answer for this is bakudeku bnha but I kind of lose all feeling for a hyperfixation after it ends most of the time so I don’t really…actively like it…sort of….but it’s also a vague ride or die thing to me…it’s complicated… the fandom environment for it is so unrecognizable to me since I was into bnha idk how to talk to people about it anymore particularly the new generation of fans. I don’t really like actively Ship them in a fandom way but fictional romantic relationships that r very influential to me are Pearlrose Steven universe and Anthy/Utena from rgu

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I mainly just want to finish pattern recognition and I think I will. Ummm. Usually if I don’t finish something it’s bc I just lost interest in seeing it finished

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think people usually like my characterization especially in terms of like, exploring or pitching certain aspects/interpretations of a characterization . Like I feel people usually respond specifically with like “wow interesting characterization. Im adding that to my system of beliefs” this applies to both funny headcanons and more serious character portrayals.

I feel I’m also usually decent at atmosphere and invoking more visceral emotions when needed especially when the emotions in question are like. Mental Illness Monologues (tm) or jarring panic/fear/discomfort idk

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I. struggle. SO bad with like. Organizing how to execute all the thoughts I want conveyed in writing, especially the order of hie things should flow. If I want to hit on multiple traits of a characterization I’m doing for ex I have a hard time figuring out how to order it into a cohesive thing. This is kicking my ass with my oc comic story rn

I also have a hard time with subtlety & trusting my writing to speak for itself. I usually have very detailed thoughts on what I want to communicate and have to do a lot of shifting around to find a balance of feeling things are conveyed clearly enough to be caught onto and interpreted but not overexplained. Its not even a matter of feeling I need to dumb stuff down it feels more like me trying to write emotional analysis of writing I find interesting before doing the writing that would be Fun To Analyze. This is kind of the torture labyrinth when usually all I want to write is emotional subtlety and naunce

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Idk my usual rule is I don’t like when it feels forced. I feel I see it used with ship pet names a lot but as someone who doesn’t get the appeal of pet names conceptually it’s often almost a dealbreaker for me in fics if it feels forced in to be cute , and is not something I can realistically imagine character A doing for character B. Like it just wigs me out. I have no idea why I get such a strong reaction out of it

But I’m really on board when it feels like people pulling from their own experiences with being bilingual or sharing a similar background with the character. When it feels intuitive I rock it as fleshing out the character’s background and people really understanding the societal background and environment the characters exist in

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I have no idea actually omg. Especially in terms of what was first published

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Idk I don’t really enjoy my writing? Often when i finish a piece of writing I am usually satisfied I’ve executed an idea or communicated The Things but I’m not actively happy or proud of anything. Its like talking to me. I talk for myself and based off I want to say but overwhelmingly talking is for communicating with Other People so once it leaves my brain my experience with its existence ends and now it’s all about other people’s experience. This somehow does not apply to my visual artwork where part of the motivation to create it involves how my experience with it continues after its completion

Ummm. I guess my intuitive answer to the question is Pattern Recognition in the sense I feels it Conveys The Most I want to convey about a subject. But it’s also like the fic I cant stand to read the most and doing so is usually an ocd trigger too. Its complicated. I very much write for myself and my own interests and i never force myself to do so but having favorites or enjoying my work just feels incompatible with my brain somehow. And somehow this does not discourage me from writing at all

[zmediaoutlet]

(1) Hi Liz, happy WW! I have a random thought-thread I’d love your opinion on, and it kind of goes with this weeks WW theme of americana and american gothic!Usually in incestious stories the siblings don't have romantic/sexual relationships outside of their family. Its interesting that both Sam and Dean have had a good amount of "normal" relationships throughout their lives, yet the fandom can still see incest as a plausible endgame. (Even though, a few of these relationships are contested.)

(2) A big theme of the show is both of the boys longing for a normal apple pie/white picket fence life, and that want being contrasted with their fucked up family and deeper desires. The way I see it, their “normal” relationships throughout the show represent the standard American Dream of wife and 2.5 kids. On the flip side, Sam and Dean’s relationship with each other is the mirror-image of that American Dream: it is the dark, american gothic, forbidden ending. (3) So throughout the show, we see two examples of American ideals/lore playing against each other. My question is: Have you ever thought about this dynamic in SPN in comparison with other incest stories/lore? Or about how their past relationships tangled with Wincest paint a bigger picture of the American-ness of the show? (Could it ever REALLY be set in Canada? Haha!) I’d love to hear your musings, I hope this message made sense!

I apologize for not getting to this on WW proper but I have been a flat fuck this week and so I needed a bit of a running start! Thank you in the first place for such a thinky ask! I think I understand what you're getting at, but you'll have to indulge me as I think out loud --

American Gothic: technically literally just that one painting, because the barn had a gothic-style window for some reason. But gothic incest romance has all those flavors of isolation, and when you combine that with American suspicion of poverty and closed communities becomes -- turning inward, backwoods and a family that looks suspiciously at outsiders and gets up to all kinds of shit. The Benders, basically.

American Dream: committed spouse, a home to build a life inside, children as a legacy, being able to support and sustain yourself and be happy and more-or-less free while nevertheless contributing to society as a whole.

Now, whenever we're thinking about something, there are the bare facts and there's the presentation of those facts. Sam and Dean are outsiders to society, raised in a way that could easily make them cult-members, who fail to have successful external relationships and end up turning inward to live alone in a bunker while having a casual relationship to violence. On bare facts, that sounds pretty American Gothic.

...On presentation and feel, though, it really isn't, and that's because the Sam and Dean we meet are not Benders, nor are they the fic-versions of themselves that we meet in various AO3 stories that try to make sense of those bare facts with an entirely different presentation and vibe to the one in the show. Instead Sam and Dean are... really regular guys, 99% of the time. Despite the being-raised-in-motels and despite the violent job and despite walking midnights full of monsters... they have a really easy time with 'strangers', they do have external relationships (brief or not), they move through the world with confidence and ease. They aren't secret serial killers. They aren't deeply possessive and controlling of each other's thoughts and desires and actions (again, despite some AO3 treatments).

Instead, if we return to our two bullet points -- which one do the Winchesters as of approx. s11 (and certainly by the point of the post-15.19 period where the characterization-story ends) really sound like? Hopefully most would agree that they ended up getting that American Dream version they hoped for, even if the bare facts aren't necessarily the stereotypical ones that people name-drop. This is partly because the "wife" and the "picket fence" don't actually mean a female spouse and a literal boring 3br/2ba in the suburbs. What they mean is stability, comfort, safety, contentment. What do Sam and Dean have together at the end of the show? All of those things. Like, 10/10 on the rubric, guys. And they don't have it in a grimdark 'ah I suck your blood out of your balls every morning' kind of way -- it is presented as an unalloyed good thing. They're happy together, just as they are.

Now: that is fucking STRANGE. But it's wonderful in its strangeness. This is a show where the leads, being as basically normal as they are, 'should' have gone the more traditional wife et al route -- but they didn't need to, and the show didn't force them into that box. (By some miracle.) They have 'normal' relationships, as you say, but (just going off purely canonical ones) Jess and Amelia and Cassie and Lisa were never real options, because the show never presented them that way. There were the 'facts' that Sam or Dean was in a more-or-less committed relationship with an external person, but the feel was that these were offscreen, told-not-shown, and they never really mattered. Every one was only possible when the overarching ur-relationship, that of Brothers (because we don't have a better word for what they really mean to each other), wasn't possible at that moment. The show does gesture at how this is strange -- Lisa tells Dean that his fixation on Sam is bizarre; Sam realizes that he has to literally choose between a girlfriend and his brother -- but the return to the central relationship is always treated as the correct choice by the narrative and, this is crucial, presented as morally sound, inside the framework in which the show operates.

You can imagine another text -- a Crimson Peak or a Borgias or a Game of Thrones or a Flowers in the Attic or a Secret History -- allowing for those external-to-internal shifts and treating them as vile, disturbing, strange. Pale violent children who snap at people who try to help them get on the correct path. Normal people staring in at the freaks and saying, what are they? what happened to them? The only character I can think of in all of Supernatural who comes close to that attitude is Henriksen, and he's a 'villain' by the lights of that season, and is brought into the light (again, inside the moral framework of the show) where he realizes, ah, the Winchesters are the good guys, so it's fine.

That might be the everlasting difference between Supernatural and some of the shows where the incestuous couple falls into the gothic 'dark' side vs the American dream side. Sam and Dean are the good guys. They are literally on the side of light. The literal deity of the new framework of the universe is their little buddy and the world was literally designed with their story in mind. Regardless of what you might think about all those things, or wish they were otherwise, or wish the presentation were otherwise -- they're just true, and the presentation of them is positive. Sam and Dean are not evil and so their strange, fucked up, bizarre relationship must come around to being a good thing, or the show just -- doesn't work. Or it's an entirely different show. But Supernatural On The CW (2005-2020) was never going to have their heroes be secretly gnasty Lannisters, and so -- their reward, after all that trial and hardship, is to live the American Dream after all. Not in a dreamlike wife or picket fence but in the things that matter: security, and comfort, and family. And they really only ever needed one other person to be their family.

(P.S. 'What about Sam?' I hear a complainer complaining. To them I say -- he got the American Dream right the first time around. What he promised to Dean was to live and try out the more traditional version, which he might have always wondered if he'd missed out on. And he had that life! Good for him. Note that it passed in the space of a montage -- returning us to presentation and told-not-shown and the feel being that it didn't matter all that much, in the end, because what happens? He shows up on the bridge in the clothes Dean loved him in, with the face Dean remembered best, and he'd been waiting all those years to say -- I imagine, and I'll let this be fic here at the end instead of meta -- I tried it. I did what you asked. Now, here I am, and I'm never doing that again. I think Dean'll be all right with that.)

[alarrytale]

Hi Marte! How do you not let the closeting, beards, stunts and het fans get to you? By het fans I mean the ones who are toxic and always projecting heterosexual fantasies and fandom policing and bullying. That all stresses me out and makes me anxious but I don't want to distance myself from the fandom as it also brings me a lot of joy. I don't have any doubt that Harry and Louis are closeted and together but I feel like I'm on edge waiting for the next stunt to happen. I wish I could look at pics of Harry with women and think nothing of it but these women often go to social media and make up stories about sleeping with him, or if they don't then it is the fans who make up stories and send them to deuxmoi. Nothing good comes from it. I wish I didn't have to worry when seeing Harry follow women on IG but from past experience, stunts usually start off with an IG follow. Looking forward to Harry starting his next era but not looking forward to his ambiguous answers in interviews which results in the het fans and queer fans fighting over what he means. Looking forward to his music but not stunt songs and his album being promoted as being about his past beards. Looking forward to him going on tour but not all the het fans falling over themselves to make up stories about sleeping with him. Not looking forward to the next beard. Or het song lyrics. I think part of it is that I've been hoping that he will CO soon and so when he pushes a het image it disappoints men. I just wish I could enjoy Harry content without thinking about his het fans twisting it into something it isn't, and wish I wasn't on edge waiting for the next beard. How do you deal with it all?

Hi, anon 💜

I deal with it by understanding what i can do something about and what i can't do something about. I can't control how other people react or feel, i can't control the stunts, his closet, Harry's image or how he's percieved by others. What i can do something about is curating my own fandom experience, not supporting things i can't in good conscience support, calling Harry out for bad behaviour, being open and transparent in what we know and what we don’t know, try to have fun and try to contribute to others having a good fandom experience.

I think different people deal with things differently and we have different coping mechanisms. I'm usually never bothered, because i've been here too long and experienced all this before. I can't be bothered with non-larrie opinions and i don't pay attention to anything toxic. I stay away from it.

I'm confident in my belief that H and L are gay and in a relationship and that they've been together since 2010. Everything else is just noice. I usually deal with shit stuff by talking about it and getting to the bottom of why things are happening to try to understand. Some people do the opposite and choose avoidance. Some people need small fandom breaks in order to make themselves miss them and fandom again, and some people seek refuge in fanart, fan fiction or other fandoms.

I think it's very important not to catastrophize everything, because things usually turns out better than expected. Allow yourself to look forward to things and focus on the good things. Have hope that things will get better, but keep in mind that things might stay the same. Learn to live and thrive in the uncertainty. Shit is usually always balanced with something good after. So when you hear a het songs or lyric, find H's lyrical love declarations for Louis. I guarantee you, they will be there 💚💙

[gcldfanged]

Meet the Writer

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ(ꜱ) ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ?

(CANON MUSES) -

Genesis: I actually HATED Genesis initially in the og CC game. I thought he was a lame addition and just like… idk, they wanted Gackt in the game so they made his presence plot relevant? OOOUGH, I was so mad… But then I saw how the rpc and fandom treats him, which is honestly even WORSE SOMEHOW??? So I decided to try writing him seriously and what do you know, I actually kinda like it.

Verdot: I literally have to make the content I wanna see in this rpc, such is my burden. my curse...

(OCs) - I wanted to write about the themes I have on my pinned and honestly, there were so many Tseng rpers who I am friends and mutuals with that knock it out of the fucking ballpark- I just didn't feel like I'd have ANYTHING new or good to contribute to the exploration of his character? So I made an OC :P And he's really changed so much! I remember when I was still making my own art for him and he wasn't QUITE like there the way I wanted him to be, but I didn't have anything better to employ as a faceclaim or reference to draw from. And then Cas was like "btw here's a manga about your HYPERFIXATION" and Kokonoi's general appearance and vibe was a great starting point to go off of instead.

Anyway, There's always things I had planned for Jae in the works or on the backburner, but he has really evolved over the span of years I've been writing him, so I really appreciate every person who took the time to check him out and build something with him.

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ?

You know, I have been becoming more lenient with allowing myself to write certain things. I always end up being afraid of how people will react to certain themes I explore because... let's be real, a lot of people are pretty intolerant to opinions that are different than theirs. So long as whatever I and/or my partner explore is handled with the care and respect it deserves, I don't really see an issue with much anymore. Hell, I was terrified to post that one drabble fleshing out Jae meeting Veld for the first time because I was afraid people would see Jae's reaction to killing someone as somehow 'excusing abuse' because he wasn't dancing on the guy's corpse and actually showed remorse for what he did. It's fears of what I write about being misconstrued like that that really makes me hesitant to even talk about certain ideas with partners. But I'm getting over that, little by little and step by step.

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ?

I actually love writing (as you can tell) introspective pieces. Something where you're really getting inside the character's head for a moment to see past all of their walls and facades, or sometimes you're still seeing what they tell THEMSELVES is the real undiluted truth, but isn't. I just love that kinda stream of consciousness really dig deep into the VOICE of a character exploration. Makes me feel lots of emotions.

ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ?

Usually I'll be doing something else like watching a piece of media or listening to a podcast and start to think "Ooh, my muse would love this" or "this makes me think of xyz muse wow", and it just kind of expands organically from there.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ɪɴ ꜱɪʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ?

Music helps get me inspired initially, especially since I make spotify playlists for all my muses (and ships :P), so generally I'm cool with music, but usually I zone in too much on my own writing to pay attention. It's like my sense of hearing turns off.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇᴘʟɪᴇꜱ ᴏʀ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ?

Both- There's always a general sort of... idea or outcome that me and my partner would LIKE to shoot for? And sometimes we just don't get there, because it really depends on what the characters do/say and how it's taken by the other muse.

For example, I was roleplaying a thread with @steeleidolon's Kunsel where he and Jae are trying to broker a deal and Kunsel ends up saying something to the effect of "your people" and he means the Turks. Jae, on the other hand, hears 'your people' and assumes Kunsel was bringing up his race and the perception of fellow people from Wutai or Hanuel being unfairly insular. So, it kinda went to shit, LOL.

It's little things like that that can color your muse's reaction to sometimes very different degrees than what you plan for!

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘɪɴɢ?

I like complicated dynamics and no, I will never shut up about them. Ships for me don't even have to strictly be romantic or sexual in nature, so like- I have some interactions I'm still feeling out with @saishuu-heiki that are platonic but leaning in a distinctly enemy/frenemy/challenges other person kind of vibe? And I think it's great! They don't HAVE to be like "we're friends, we're lovers, or we hate each other'- Like, limiting all your interactions to one of those three options gets really boring for me...

ᴡʜᴀᴛ'ꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀʟɪᴀꜱ/ɴᴀᴍᴇ?

King_Kkeungi is my mangaka pseudonym for the Silent Manga Audition that I tried submitting to last year. People have called me just "King" (if they didn't know how to pronounce Korean) or "Kkeungi" before, so I tend to go by these handles now.

ᴀɢᴇ?

30s, I'm like Dagon: ancient and evil, spoken about in hushed whispers that the zealots who follow my dark lore worship-

ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ?

May 10th

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ(ꜱ)?

Blue-greens like teal and turquoise, soft pastel mint, and pinky-purples

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴏɴɢ(ꜱ)?

Currently? PRIMADONNA by Kedarui! It's a sequel to their other song, Femme Fatale and has amazing lore and characters. It's just got fascinating kinda themes and imagery when you watch them back to back.

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

The 2nd DUNE movie, holy crap, I was blown away!

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

Hell's Paradise, which I am still TRYING to finish.

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱᴏɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ?

Philip by millenium parade, my new go-to Jae song

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜰᴏᴏᴅ?

Thai or Vietnamese food *drools*

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ?

Summer... I just love the heat and the sun and the iconic imagery/sounds/themes like eating watermelon and wearing floppy plastic sandals, melting ice cream, hearing the chime of our furin while sitting outside on the porch of the house.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅ?

I talk to regularly (like near every day): @ceaselxss, @annjiru, @phoenixshards, @sadistpet, @nightiingaled. Like talking with a lot: @speedchasing, @ofdeference, @hisnewera, @cwarscars, @contemptim, @steeleidolon, @altrxisme, @hxbiris & @hxvemxnd

The people who have known me the LONGEST are mostly discord only rpers now, but Tricky, HD, Kit, and Vixen I consider to be extremely close to me since we've been friends for... like over or around 6+ years and are still ongoing buddies who have met face to face before.

Then there's my ex-fiancee, but he doesn't do tumblr rp anymore.

This list also doesn't even cover ppl I write with/ooc interacted with over a long period of time like @ivory-paragon, @poeticphoenix, @reapersxfolly, @endweapon, @chthonicsurge, or @dcviltriggcr, so- I like reaching out to people and developing bonds! We don't even have to be on discord capslocking at each other, it's really cool when you can come back to an RPC and still have that connection without any awkward small talk?

[4outof5ghostslikemynightmares]

Is it Discord or is it me: Is Joining Servers Harder for ND folks?

My AuDHD (autism + ADHD) ass finds discord servers so hard to...connect with.

Like one, it gets a little overwhelming to begin with -- all the little sub-groups of the servers, all the different people in those sub groups with notification after notification, and fearing breaking some server rule about what kind of stuff goes where.

There's so much going on at once. There's so much to try and learn to even begin to interact.

But it can be kinda lonely, too, as a newcomer.

Like starting as a completely new student at a great new school that seems filled with like-minded folks, only to discover at lunch time that all the tables are already full. You find a spot, introduce yourself, and receive a little bit of a hello from one or two folks...only for them to go right back talking to the rest of the group.

The RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) kicks in real hard then.

Like, I want to participate but how do I do it right? How to make friends when it seems like they all already know each other, when I don't feel I can contribute to non-fandom chats they're having because I don't know them or what they're talking about yet.

Then, you do kinda find a few "ins" where you could contribute to the conversation(s) but it just kinda fizzles out much like those damn lunch table attempts would.

And then you wonder: should they be trying a little harder to welcome folks in or should I be doing something different? How can I Be Good at People-ing? Is it too late to join when it's in full swing like that? IDK.

It's...not an easy way of socializing for a lot of us ND folks, I'd bet, but that doesn't make it feel much better.

I realize this sounds kind of pathetic, but this has been the way that I've always wound up feeling re: Discord Servers for Fandom and it's strange because the few Skype groups and old-school Forums I was in did NOT feel that way regardless of size (remember those days?)

I've joined about 4 Fandom Discords over the years and usually I put tons and tons of effort into trying to Socialize Correctly, but right now I'm wondering with this 4th (5th?) one here if I just...shouldn't have. Maybe I'll just read and react to things with emojis -- when the RSD eases up enough that I don't feel like even that makes me feel like An Outsider.

[amostimprobabledream]

This is going to sound kind of well-duh, but here it is...

So...I have a habit of occasionally hyperfixating on blogs I find, usually when I've found a new fandom and want to immerse myself in it. And then I get attached to it and I'll start sending anons sharing ideas and stuff, especially if the person running the blog seems chill and I lowkey want to be friends.

EXCEPT I'M KIND OF SHY SOMETIMES so I always do it with anon turned on. So that way it seems like it's a lot of different people and not just me bothering them over and over...

And it's so crazy because actually, there are a couple of blogs out there who have had thoughts/prompts/etc I sent in and made really awesome content - based off something I sent in! My friend will confirm this, I've literally sent her perhaps hundreds of asks, mostly anonymously, to her blog, but she knows it's me because she knows the way I type/phrase things too well.

So why don't I just write them myself?!

I guess it's lowkey me trying to contribute and if I'm new to the fandom, I don't always feel confident about taking on the ideas I come up with. But when it comes to writing short headcanons or whatever, I rarely do it because for some reason I got it into my head that people won't want to read something so short?

EVEN THOUGH I LOVE READING SHORT LITTLE PIECES IN RESPONSE TO MY PROMPTS.

So I guess from now on, when I have an idea, I should just write it myself instead of constantly outsourcing my ideas to other people because I think they'll do them better then me, and maybe that way more people will interact with me/my blog, which I'd very much like! I love yapping about fandoms with people (so long as they aren't being rude to me lol), and I have no idea why it's taken me this long to figure this out. My tumblr is like ten years old and I've been active on it since like 2017. I feel so stupid. I don't know why I decided the only way people would consume any content by me MUST be in a fully fleshed-out fanfic idea and not just a small post or drabble. I almost want to tag some of the people I've been sending anons to all this time and confessing that they were actually me, but some of the people I don't really talk to anymore (we didn't have a fight or anything, I just realised I was putting way more energy into the friendship than they were), or they don't know who I am and probably think I'm just an overeager weirdo (which I am, tbf) , or it's my friends who DO know it's me. Idk, maybe with some of them I should still be like, "Hey, remember X/Y/Z post? I'm the anon who sent that!" Like, this is YEARS worth of content in some cases. When I find a blog I like I stick to them unless they start posting/reblogging some shit I don't want to see.

So yeah, I guess this post is to say, from now on you can expect to see a lot more fandom-related content from me, but in a smaller scale instead of churning out fanfics every two months or so.

Thoughts? Opinions? I hope you guys reading this are excited about this extremely overdo moment of clarity!

[fonulyn]

So I just checked out your ao3 in more detail and saw you have like over 264 works and more than 100 for nivaneddy! I just wanted to say that's absolutely amazing and thank you for your contributions to the ships and fandom! I've also got a question, how have you managed to create so many works and also do you have any tips for new writers?

yeah i've written kind of a lot 😅 probably too much. but i hope you find something you like to read in there!

as for the question, i don't really have a clear answer. i've always been prolific and a fast writer when i'm inspired so it just. usually it comes easily? i've been telling stories my entire life. if i have an idea i really get into, it marinates in my brain and refuses to leave until it's written down :'D the hardest part is to actually sit down and begin typing, but once i do, the words usually come on their own.

BUT I also work really well from external validation and motivation. like. i used to have a friend who was always excited for what i wrote and always excited to talk ideas and read wips and provide rambly quot-y feedback. and i've never written as much as i did then! having someone in your corner cheering you on can be so incredibly motivating. alas, when that person then inevitably leaves you it can throw you into a slump that's harder to climb out of 😅

i'm trying, but idk, i feel very drained.

I know this sounds like a cop-out as an answer but we're all so different, you've just got to find out what works for you. some people write better by just grabbing a prompt and winging it, some people need to sit down and plan and outline before doing the actual writing. some people need gentle kicks in the butt from friends, some don't.

but the most important thing is to write what you enjoy. don't get bogged down by trying to please some imaginary audience that doesn't exist elsewhere than in your mind. when you enjoy what you do, it's so much easier to get shit done.

and finishing a story you wanted to tell? the best feeling ever :D (okay someone else liking the story might be even better lol but I'll take what I can get)

[hanzajesthanza]

Re: your post on staring down the barrel of a lot of work for your Witcher videos, I just wanted to send some encouragement your way!

I just wanted to reiterate that taking your time with something so rich as The Witcher is a good practice, because good things are worth waiting for and doing in an intentional way.

Off Tumblr I've been collaborating for years with friends on content for an entirely different fandom, and it took a lot of unraveling of the "threads" around that topic (without revealing the fandom and topic itself, it's a one that I'd describe as a huge iceberg) before we felt like we could even begin to get into a lot of things that all of us were really eager to dive into early on, but knew we needed to be patient and do a lot of establishing content before it would be wise to go where we wanted to go with it. We do similar deep dive analysis to what you do, just in a different format with a different template.

The emotional pay-off of the feedback we've received (both good-faith criticism from people who had notes for us which we could learn from, and positive/effusive praise from those who enjoyed and gleaned value from it), because we were patient and intentional in how we approached it, and intentional about the order in which we tackled topics, has been immense. And we feel like we've made a positive contribution to that fandom space, or at least given the people who enjoyed our content some permission to engage with the collective discussion in a way that gives voice to aspects of it that aren't often covered in the usual discourse and deserve space.

So TL;DR, as one person out there who appreciates the work you're doing, I'm willing to be patient with it, because good things done intentionally and with care are worth waiting for! And thank you for the work you're doing for The Witcher. :)

i have to say, thank you so much for this ask! are you an angel in disguise? :D i really appreciate the advice... especially advice from someone who has experience doing such a project, because though i love hearing all encouragement from anyone, it is most helpful to hear what worked for you in a similar niche.

for myself, i get really interested and passionate about details, so setting a long-term plan about what content to do in which order for myself is not only a commitment, but requires me to think in a really zoomed-out version of how i usually think. and though i like creating long-term plans, what's hard is remaining patient and confident in this plan.

in addition to that, even though i really enjoy the work, the videos themselves are a lot more work than i'm typically used to putting into an analysis post, of which i can usually write off in one spontaneous night, if i feel some argument within me. but for youtube, i've realized that the research, writing, filming, editing, etc. to make a video is a months-long process for me.

of course, though a goal of mine is to move towards quicker iteration and replication, i know that there's likely a limit to how much i can speed it up, if i'm unwilling to sacrifice the "depth" and "quality" which comes from it... i'm not trying to be presumptuous with that statement, like, "oh my content is soooo deep, it takes sooo long to make," LOL no, i just mean that doing deep research and outlining a strong argument is not only part of the fun for me, but kind of integral for the content i'm making.

i've found it difficult to find good advice for content creators which applies to me and this niche. most advice out there about content creation which i've found is that "quantity > quality," the message being that if you post very frequently, you will improve quicker than if you invest long periods of time making less videos. which is true, you do improve with every step, but hearing "you WILL make bad videos," though it may be encouragement for some, is not what i want to be doing at this point. at this stage, i want to put my best foot forward and have a sense of great pride in everything i put out there - not just post for the sake of posting. especially because exactly what i'm trying to get good at is the long-form content and long-term planning. it's not like i can't post random thoughts anywhere - here on tumblr is the place for that - but i'd like to keep my channel "interesting," "insightful," "complex," not just "entertaining."

add to that, that video essays operate on a different time scale than other types of content, that it's more deliberate and less spontaneous, it's difficult to feel out what advice to take to heart and what to know won't work for me. although i feel my previous video was a success, and that success proved to me that what i want to do will work, it's still hard to tell at this early stage in the process how everything will pan out.

for these reasons, i really appreciate what you had to say in this ask. what you've described here is so on-the-nose with what i'm also trying to do, so it feels great to learn that this is what worked for you, your friends, and your project! thank you so much for this ask and the encouragement, i am really going to keep this advice in my back pocket for when i start to doubt myself and the larger plan i have :)